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POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 



PART II. 



UNDER THE SUPERINTENDENCE OF THE SOCTETY FOR 
THE DIFFUSION OF USEFUL KNOWLEDGE. 



POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY 




BY HENRY, LORD BROUGHAM^ F.R.S 

MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF FRANCE, 
MEMBER OF THE. ROYAL ACADEMY OF NAPLES. 




PART II. 

OF ARISTOCRACY. 
ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENTS. 



LONDON: 
CHARLES KNIGHT & CO., 22, LUDGATE STREET. 

1846. 









By transfer 

JUL 6 1915 



TO 



THE QUEEN. 



Madam, 

By the commands of the Useful Knowledge 
Society, incorporated by charter of your revered 
predecessor, King- William IV., I lay at Your 
Majesty's feet the treatise upon Political Philo- 
sophy which they have published, with the view 
of making the Science of Government more gene- 
rally understood, and of correcting the errors which 
the violence of conflicting parties, or the zeal of 
rival theorists, have propagated in all ages and in 
all countries. 

In presuming to solicit Your Majesty's gracious 
attention to this work, it is fit that I should state 
how far the Society and how far the author alone 
are severally answerable for the opinions which it 
explains and supports. 

The Society only undertakes a general responsi- 
bility for the doctrines delivered in the Treatises 
published under its superintendence. A general 



VI DEDICATION. 

coincidence of opinion alone is to be expected in a 
body so variously composed. That all its members 
are agreed in holding fast by the principles of our 
constitution, in cherishing those sentiments which 
lead to the improvement as well as the preservation 
of our institutions, and in favouring whatever may 
promote the peace of the world, may safely be 
affirmed. The details connected with those funda- 
mental positions are to be regarded as the work 
and as the doctrine of the writer rather than of his 
colleagues. 

But there is one subject upon which they both 
equally concur without any shade of difference : — 
That Your Majesty may long reign in tranquillity, 
foreign and domestic, over a free, a loyal, and a 
happy people, is alike the prayer of the Society, 
and of, 

Madam, 

Your faithful and devoted Subject, 

BROUGHAM. 



CONTENTS. 




CHAPTER I. 

OF THE NATURE OF ARISTOCRACY IN GENERAL. 

Aristocracy defined — Errors on this subject — Roman and Athenian Governments — 
Germs of Aristocracy may exist and give rise to it — Illustrations from Rome and 
Athens — Pure Aristocracies rare — Tendency of Aristocratic Government to become 
mixed . . . • Page I 



CHAPTER II. 

OF BALANCES AND CHECKS. 

Dogmatical denial of Checks — This founded on theory alone — Doctrine of Checks 
misconceived — Doctrine explained — Its foundation — Fallacy of the objectors ex- 
posed — Illustration of the doctrine from joint Powers: Mutual veto: Factious 
majority — Illustrations from English constitution — Proceedings since 1832 — Illus- 
tration from balance of Parties in Parliament — Illustration from Dynamics — Checks, 
proper or imperfect — Example of the proper Checks : Roman Constitution — Example 
of the imperfect Check : Venetian constitution — Absolute monarchies — English and 
American Constitutions — Senseless project of Peerage Reform. . . p. 5 

CHAPTER III. 

PROGRESS AND CHANGES OF ARISTOCRACY— OLIGARCHY. 

Tendency of Aristocratic and Democratic Constitutions to mix with others — Difference 
in this respect of Despotism — Tendency greatest in Aristocracies — Early pupilage 
of the People — Their progress to emancipation — Best course for the Aristocracy — 
Illustration from colonial emancipation — Natural introduction of Oligarchy — Its 
natural progress to greater exclusiveness — Its natural tendency to dissolution — Ex- 
amples from the Venetian, Genoese, Siennese, and Lucca Governments. . p. 17 



CHAPTER IV. 

FOUNDATION OF ARISTOCRACY IN THE NATURE OF THINGS.— 
NATURAL ARISTOCRACY. 

Equality impossible — Attempts made to ensure it — Influence of independent circum- 
stances — Of wealth — Reflex operation — Upstart superiority — Foundation of respect 
for hereditary distinctions — Reflex feeling —Hereditary superiority improves men 
— Effects of improvement — Respect for rank — Natural — Essential to artificial Aris- 
tocracy — Illustrations from Rome, Sparta, Feudal Government, Modern Italy — 
Effect of Natural Aristocracy in destroying Oligarchy — Political profession impos- 
sible — It must necessarily be a corrupt trade — Athenian State orators — Advantages 
and disadvantages of a Political profession . . . . p. 23 



viii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER V. 

OF PARTY. 

Origin of Party — Aristocracy most exposed to it — Venice the .only exception — Justifi- 
able party unions — Factious System — Undermines principle — Destroys confidence 
in Statesmen — Corrupts private morals — Unites sordid motives with pure — Produces 
self-deception -Destroys regard for truth — Promotes abuse of the Press — Gives scope 
to malignant feelings — Passage of Dante — Operation of Faction on inferior Partisans 
— Effects in paralysing the public Councils — In promoting treasonable proceedings 
— Defence of Party : Burke, Fox — Conclusion of this subject . . p. 34 

CHAPTER VI. 

VICES AND VIRTUES OF THE ARISTOCRATIC POLITY. 

Defects of Aristocracy — No responsible Rulers — No influence of Public Opinion — 
Comparison with other Governments — Interests in conflict with public duty — 
Illustrations from Roman Constitution ; Modern Aristocracies ; English and French 
Constitutions — Legislation influenced by Aristocratic interests — Similar evils in 
Democracy — Evils of Hereditary Privileges — Tendency to make bad Rulers — Com- 
parison of Aristocracy and Democracy — Corruption of Morals — Virtue of French 
Republicans — Galling yoke of Aristocracy — Merits of Aristocracy ; firmness of pur- 
pose — Resistance to change — House of Lords — Contrast of Democracy — Republican 
attempts to resist the Natural Aristocracy — Aristocracies pacific — Exceptions, 
Venice and Rome — Encouragement of Genius — Comparison with Democracy and 
Monarchy — Spirit of personal honour — Contrast of Democracy — F. Paul's opinion 
— Aristocratic body aids the civil Magistrate — Error committed in our Colonies 

p. 48 

CHAPTER VII. 

OF THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY. 

Individual influence in Aristocracies — Partial delegation of supreme power — Feudal 
and Civic Nobility in Italy — Polish Aristocracy — Operation of Feudal Aristocracy 
on Government — Illustration of Feudal Aristocracy from English History — Monkish 
Historians — William of Malmsbury — William of Newberry — Matthew Paris — Roger 
Hoveden — Henry of Huntingdon . . . . . . . p. 63 

CHAPTER VIII. 

MIXED ARISTOCRACIES— POLAND. 

Tendency of Aristocracy towards mixed Government — May be really pure when appa- 
rently mixed — Examples : Venice, Genoa, Lucca, San Marino — Polish Constitution 
— Ancient History — Origin of factious spirit — Extinction of all jealousy of Foreign 
influence — Patriotism of the Czartoryskis — Conduct of neighbouring Powers — The 
Partition — Nobles strictly an Aristocracy — Their Privileges — Palatines; Castellans; 
Starosts — Elective Crown — Foreign interference — Diet of Election — Royal Prero- 
gative — Change in 1773— Senate — Its Constitution and functions — Chamber of 
Nuncios — Functions of the Diet — Absurdities in its Constitution — Prophylactic 
power and Vis Medicatrix in Governments — Mitigating devices in the Polish Con- 
stitution — Administration of Justice — Defect in the English similar to one in the 
Polish Government — Military System— Character and habits of the Nobles — Prince 
Czartoryski • ««..»..,. p. 71 



CONTENTS. ix 

CHAPTER IX. 

MIXED ARISTOCRACIES— HUNGARY. 

Lombard Conquest — Magyars — Arpad Family — Feudal circumstances — Nobility — 
Cardinal and Non-Cardinal privileges — Magnates — Bulla Aurea — Titled Nobles — 
Diet — Representation ; Proxies ; Votes — Delegation — • Diet's functions — Taxes — 
Cassa Domestica and Militaris — Count Szechinij — Local County Administration 
■ — Congregationes Generales — Municipal Government, Kozseg ; Candidatio — Village 
Government — Powers of the Crown — Sale of Titles — Peasantry — Urbarium of Maria 
Theresa — Lords' power ; Robot — Lords' Courts ; reforms in these — New Urbarium ; 
Prince Metternich's reforms — Military System ; Insurrectionary Army — Frontier 
Provinces — Prejudices of Hungarians in favour of their Constitution' — Conclusion of 
the subject . . . . . . . . . . . p. 86 

CHAPTER X. 

CONSTITUTION OF ROME. 

Importance of the subject — Its great difficulty — Ancient historians — Modern writers — 
Predecessors of Niebuhr — Niebuhr and his school — Scantiness of materials — Cha- 
racter of Niebuhr 's writings — Early history entirely fabulous — Illustrations — Early 
divisions of the people — Early Constitution — The Tribes — Patricians — Plebeians — 
Patrons — Clients — Comitia Curiata— Niebuhr's doctrine examined — Equites — Re- 
forms of Servius — Centuries and Comitia Centuriata — Legislation of Servius — 
Comparison with Solon's — Tarquin the Proud — His tyranny — His expulsion — 
Foundation of the Aristocratic Republic — Fabulous history — Comparison of the 
Roman Revolution with the French and English . . . p. 98 

CHAPTER XI. 

CONSTITUTION OF ROME— (Continued). 

Patrician power — 1. Patrons and Clients — Feudal resemblance— iErarii — Error of 
authors — Clients in Sparta, Crete, Thessaly, and Attica — 2. Monopoly of Offices — 
Senate — Conflicting accounts — Dionysius and Livy — Errors of authors — Censors — 
Choice of Senate — Practical checks to Censorial power — Senate's functions — Varia- 
tions in its power — Patres et Conscripti — Senate's influence — Dictators — Consuls — 
Praetors — Patrician oppressions — Public lands — Agrarian laws — Spurius Cassius — 
Licinian Rogations — Patrician creditors — Tribunes chosen — Their powers — Progress 
of popular power — Decline of Comitia Curiata — Rise of Tributa — Course of legis- 
lation — Double legislation — Anomalies — Solution of the paradox — Senatus Con- 
sulta and Plebiscita — Checks to the Tribunes — Superstitious rites — Laws of the 
Auspices — Senate's errors — Democracy established — Practical defects in the Govern- 
ment—Decemvirs . . . . . . . . . . p. 119 

CHAPTER XII. 

CONSTITUTION OF ROME— (Continued). 

Government carried on by laws and legislative decrees — Consuls — Praetors — iEdiles, 
Plebeian and Curule — Quaestors, Civil and Military — Choice of Magistrates — Con- 
troversy de Binis Comitiis — Dictator — Progress of popular power — Interrex — • 



x CONTENTS. 

Consular functions — Provincial Pro-Praetors and Pro-Consuls — Vigour of the Go- 
vernment—Religious polity — Pontiffs — Rex Sacrorum — College of Augurs — Ham- 
spices — Sibylline Decemvirs — Singular facts — Judicial duties of magistrates — Cor- 
nelian laws — Judicial system — Judices — Centumviri — Qucesitores — Jus Quaestionis> 
or Meium Imperium — Divinatio — Special judicial laws — Abuses from thence — 
Analogy of Parliamentary Privilege — Impeachment — Cognitiones extraordinariae — 
Examples ,......•••• p. 142 

CHAPTER XIII. 

REFLECTIONS ON THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. 

Progress of Democracy — Canuleius — Address of the Patricians — Distinction of the 
Orders obliterated— New Aristocratic distinctions — New Plebeian body ; their base- 
ness — Operation of Party — Plebeians at different periods — Virtues of the old Ple- 
beians ; contrast of the new— Savage character; warlike habits — Massacres of 
Marius— Cicero — Julius Caesar — Corruption of the People— Canvassing ; Treating ; 
Bribery— Sale of Votes; Divisores ; Ambitus; Sodalitium — Bribery Laws — Unpaid 
Magistracy — Popular patronage and corruption — Peculatus ; Repetundae — Popular 
corruption — Factions ; Civil War — Overthrow of the Commonwealth — Conduct of 
the Aristocracy — Aristocracy and Princes — Error of the Patricians — American War; 
Irish Independence — Roman Parties — Conduct of the People — Roman Yeomanry — 
Moderate use of power — Natural aristocracy — Orders new moulded — West Indian 
Society — Aristocracy of middle Classes — Power useless to an uneducated people — 
Checks on the People — Checks in general — Delay and Notice ; English proceedings 

Factious men at Rome uncontrolled — Catiline's Conspiracy — Cicero's conduct — 

Middleton's error . . . . . . . . • . p. 155 

CHAPTER XIY. 

GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE— SPARTA. 

Greek Authorities — False Chronology — Ages of the Historians — Early History — Con- 
stitution of Crete — Perioeci ; Clerotes — Pure Aristocracy established — Resistance — 
Federal Government established — Constitution of Sparta derived from Crete — Opi- 
nions of Polybius and others — Perioeci — Helots — Lycurgus — General Remarks — 
Authors — Classes of the People — Proofs of this Theory — Hypomeiones ; Homoioi ; 
Mothaces — Tribes ; Phylae ; Obae — Castes — Mora? — Errors of Authors — Kings or 
Archagetae — Rules of Succession — Senate — Ecclesiae — Mode of Voting — Harmo- 
synae ; Homo-phylaces ; Harmostse; Hippagretae . . . . p. 174 

CHAPTER XV. 

GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE— SPARTA— (Continued). 

Object of the Spartan system — Its operation traced — Stages of Human Life as subject 
to it — Marriage; procreation; infancy; boyhood; paedonomus; full age — Equality 
of Fortune attempted — Slaves; their Classes; Treatment — Ephori— their Power — 
Resemblance to Tribunes— Opinions of authors reconciled — Ephoral Usurpation — 
Artificial Aristocracy — Natural Aristocracy — Controversy on Classification ; Opi- 
nions of Authors — Contradictory Usages — Unintelligible Statements — Paradoxes — 
Duration of Lycurgus's Polity — Party Process and Changes — Agis ; Lysander ; 
Cleomenes — Spartans overpowered, join the Achaean League — Distinction of Orders. 

p. 187 



CONTENTS. xi 

CHAPTER XVI. 

GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE— ATHENS. 

Authors — Early History — Cecrops ; Theseus — Threefold Division of the People — An- 
cient Officers — Panathensea — Kings — Archons — Eupatridse — Polemarch ; Epony- 
mus; Basileus; Thesmothetae — Classes; Pedraei ; Diacrii ; Paralii — Anarchy — 
Draco — Solon — Errors respecting his Legislation — Solon's Reforms ; Archons : Col- 
leges; Paredri — Courts of Justice — Areopagus — Heliastae — Inferior Magistrates — 
Pure Democracy — Classes of the People — Population — Slaves — Effects of Slavery ; 
Xenophon ; Plato ; Diogenes — Phylae ; Phratriae ; Genea ; Trityes ; Demi — The 
Ecclesia — Senate — Elections ; Scrutiny — Prytanes ; Epistata — Euthynas ; Logistae 
Voting; Ballot — Areopagus — Its Powers; its Composition — Logistse; Euthynae — 
Mars Hill ; St. Paul— Heliaea— American Court— Ephetae . . p. 204 

CHAPTER XVII. 

GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE— ATHENS— {Continued). 

Other Checks beside the Areopagus — State and Public Orators — Payment of Func- 
tionaries — Rules as to Alterations of the Law — Nomothetes — Syndics — Direct Re- 
peal required — Impeachment for illegal Legislation — Quorum — Prohibition of Re- 
peal — Power of Adjournment — Variety of Bodies — Appeal, and reconsideration — 
Ostracism — General feeling against these — Orators ; their influences — Advocates 
and Professional Orators — Legislative and Judicial Functions combined — Corrup- 
tion of Statesmen — Demosthenes — Whigs in Charles II. 's reign — Demades — Cor- 
ruption, faction, and fickleness of the People — Turbulence of Assemblies — Radical 
vices of the System — Advantages derived from the system . . . p. 224 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE— ATHENS— {Concluded). 
OTHER STATES. 

Parties at Athens — Dalesmen, Mountaineers, Coastmen, and Trimmers — Usurpation of 
the Pisistratidae — Their downfall — Pisistratus — Clisthenes — Miltiades — Popular 
ingratitude — Fables on Marathon — Democratic reform — Aristides — Barbarous popu- 
lar excesses — Themistocles — His maltreatment — Athenian greatness — Pericles — 
Alcibiades — Thirty Tyrants — Faction — Rebellion — Socrates — Other States — Bceotia 
— iEtolia — Corcyra — Achaea — Foreign appeals . . . . p. 241 



CHAPTER XIX. 

ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS— MUNICIPAL CONSTITUTIONS AND 
ARISTOCRACY. 

Feudal plan monarchical — Rise of Aristocracy — Civic Nobility — Otho I. — General 
form of Government — Consuls — Credenza — Senate — Parliament — Wars of the 
Cities — Pavia and Milan — War of the Towns — Treaty of Constance . p. 250 



xii CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XX. 

GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. 

Origin of Venice— Insular Federacy — Anarchy — Doge created — Venice founded — 
Conquests— Parties— Doge's power restricted— Pregadi— Aristocracy founded— 
Grand Council — Council of Ten — Inquisitors— Spies — Lion's Mouth — Committee 
of Public Safety P- 260 

CHAPTER XXI. 

GOVERNMENT OF VENICE— (Continued). 

D ge — Complicated election— Two objects kept in view — Neither attained — Examina- 
tion of the process — First object to prevent faction — Second object to prevent corrup- 
tion—Jealous nature of Aristocracy — Limited power of the Doge — Ducal Oath — 
Officers to watch and punish the Doge — Avogadors — Doge's prerogative — Senate or 
Pregadi — Collegio — Judicial power — Quarantia — Offices filled by Commoners — 
Procurators of St. Mark— Savii— Provincial offices — Government of Candia p. 269 



CHAPTER XXII. 

GOVERNMENT OF VENICE— (Concluded). 

Great vigour of the Government — Comparison of dominions with those of England — 
With those of Rome — Venetian tyranny — Examples : Carrara ; Carmagnola ; 
Foscari — Firmness and Vigour — Military policy — Equalizing laws — Merits of the 
system — Provincial Government — Oligarchy substantially established — Comparison 
with English Government — Scottish Parliament — Meanness and Pride of Venetian 
Nobles — Improvements in modern times ..... p. 278 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS— VENETIAN TERRA FIRMA. 

Terra Firma — Feudal Nobility — Municipal Government in their hands originally — 
Podestas — Factions — Montecchi and Bonifazii — Adelardi and Salinguerra — Vivario 
and Vicenza families — Rise of the Friars — Their fanatical preaching and influence — 
Their usurpation — John of Vicenza — Jordan of Padua — Ezzelino da Romano — His 
prodigious tyranny — Despicable submission of the People — His destruction — Sub- 
missions of the Towns to others — Levity of Democratic Councils of Padua — Cor- 
rected by the Aristocracy — Municipal Governments — Anziani — Gastaldioni — Cane 
della Scala — John Galeaz Visconti — Democracy of Verona and Vicenza — Submis- 
sion of the People to tyranny — War of Parties in Italy — Hired troops — Condottieri 
— Military operations — Surrender of rights by the People to Chiefs — Effects of Aris- 
tocracy, Faction, Tyranny, on the character of the People — Letters and the Arts. 

p. 295 



CONTENTS. x ,iii 

CHAPTER XXIV. 

GOVERNMENT OF GENOA. 

Early History— Pisan Alliances and Conquests— Constitution of 1096— Aristocracy- 
Parties of the Nobles— Podesta— Turbulence of the Factions— Constant Revolutions 
—Companies of Arts— Credenza— Oligarchy established— Abate— Capitano del 
Popolo— W. Boccanegro's Usurpation— Genoese Fickleness and Factions— Party 
movements and civil conflicts— Viscontis called in— Perpetual Revolutions— New 
Nobility ; their Power ; their Factions— Conflict with the old— Revolutions— French 
Conquests— Andrew Doria— Spanish Conquest— Doria's noble Conduct and Re- 
forms—Final Aristocratic Constitution— Attempts to extinguish Party— Alberghi 
—New Factions— Councils— Doge— Syndics— Inquisitors— Judicial Administra- 
tion—Galling yoke of the Aristocracy— Folly of the new Nobles and Plebeians- 
Oligarchical periods— Comparison of Genoese and Venetian Governments— Oli- 
garchy of Genoese settlements p. 310 



CHAPTER XXV. 



ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS— MILAN, 

Consuls — Podestas — Credenza — Patricians — Plebeians — Struggles of the Orders — Ca- 
valry — Condottieri — Foreign Captain-General — Financial Dictatorship — Compa- 
nies ; Credenzas ; Molta — Councils — Defects of History in Political Matters — Signor 
del Popolo — Martino della Torre — Visconti completes his usurpation — Unprinci- 
pled Conduct of both Patricians and Plebeians — Unfitness of the Lombards for Self- 
Government — Conflict of Factions — Succession of Revolutions — Visconti Family — 
Vain attempt to erect Republic — Francis Sforza — His Victories, and elevation by the 
Mob — Fickleness and baseness of the People at Milan and Placentia — Charles V. 
obtains the Sovereignty after the Sforzas . . . . . .p. 328 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE. 

Florence joins the League late — Early Constitution — Consuls ; Quarters ; Senate — « 
Burgher Aristocracy — At first mixed, then pure — Podesta established — Expelled, 
and new Government established — Old Constitution restored — New Constitution 
after Manfred's defeat — Two Councils — Party Government within the Government 
— Parallel of Jacobin Club — New Constitution — Its Anomalies and Absurdities — 
Factious Turbulence — Interferes with Justice and Police — Ordinances of Justice — 
Monstrous Provisions — Popular Aristocracy ; Popolani Grossi — Bianchi and Neri — 
Absurdities of Party — New mode of electing the Seignory — Burgher Oligarchy- 
Duke of Athens — Progress of Tyranny — Changes in the Constitution — New Party 
divisions ; Natural Aristocracy — Albrizzi and Ricci — Factious Violence — Ciompi ; 
Mob Government — Triumph of the Aristocratic Polity — Influence of Free Institu- 
tions — Of Democratic Government — Grandeur of Florence — Feudal and Burgher 
Economy . . . . . . . . . . . p. 341 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

LESSER ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS— PISA— BOLOGNA— SIENNA- 
LUCCA— SAN MARINO. 

Want of Information respecting Pisa. 

Bologna. — Early Charter and Government — Early regularity of the Constitution — 
Consuls ; Councils ; Podesta ; Public Orators — Party Feuds. 

Sienna. — Aristocracy never entirely extinguished — Consuls ; Podesta ; Council — Oli- 
garchy established ; steps of the transition — Intrigues of the Oligarchs with Foreign 
Powers — Oligarchs overthrown — Burgher Aristocracy and Oligarchy — Government 
falls into the hands of the lowest Class — Surrender to Visconti — Factious Turbulence 
and Revolutions — Petrucci's Power — Five Orders recognised — Duke of Calabria — 
Mob Oligarchy — Revolution and New Government — Dictatorship, and Destruction 
of this Constitution — Government of Spain and France alternately — Union with 
Tuscany — Real duration of Siennese Oligarchy. 

Lucca. — Revolutions deserving of attention — Early Government and Parties — Cas- 
truccio Castracani's Services and Usurpation — Good Conduct of the Lucchese — 
Anziani ; Gonfaloniere ; College ; Great Council — Practical Oligarchy — Paul 
Giunigi — His great Merit — Cruel Fate — Republic restored — Perfidy and Conquest 
of the Medici — Martinian Law — Oligarchy finally established — Its permanence. 

San Mabino. — Antiquity of its Government — Extent and Population — Constitution ; 
Anziani; Senate; Gonfaloniere; Capitani — Judicial Authority . p. 355 

CHAPTER XXVIII. 

SWISS ARISTOCRACIES. 

Division of the Subject: — 1. Lucern — Feudal History — Early Constitution — Aristo- 
cracy established — Sovereign Council — Senate — Avoyers — Self-Election — Aristo- 
cracy popular — Consequences in French invasion — Act of Mediation, 1803 — New 
Constitution — Policy of Napoleon — Constitution of 1814. 

2. Zurich — Early Aristocracy — Government more -exclusive — Council — Senate — 
Constitution of 1803— of 1814. 

3. Bern — Early Constitution — Aristocracy introduced — Great Council — Senate — 
Seizeniers — Avoyers — Constitution of 1803 — of 1816 — Self-Election — Oligarchy. 

4. Geneva — Early History — Mixed Aristocracy — Parties — Great Council — Senate — 
Revolution of 17 82r— Restoration of the old Government — Constitution of 1814 — 

' Importance of Geneva ........ p. 369 



ERRATUM. 

Page 74, line 13 from bottom, for Michael John Sobieski, read Michael Prince 
Wisniowietzki, who was succeeded in 1673 by the heroic John Sobieski. 




CHAPTER I. 

OF THE NATURE OF ARISTOCRACY IN GENERAL. 



Aristocracy defined — Errors on this subject — Roman and Athenian Governments — ■ 
Germs of Aristocracy may exist and give rise to it — Illustrations from Rome and 
Athens — Pure Aristocracies rare — Tendency of Aristocratic Government to become 
mixed. 

Where the supreme power in any state is in the hands of a 
portion of the community, and that portion is so constituted that 
the rest of the people cannot gain admittance, or can only gain 
admittance with the consent of the select body, the government, 
as we have seen (Part I., Chap. II.), is an Aristocracy; where 
the people at large exercise the supreme power it is a Democracy. 
Nor does it make any difference in these forms of government, 
that the ruling body exercises its power by delegation to indi- 
viduals or to smaller bodies. Thus a government would be 
Aristocratic in which the select body elected a chief to whom a 
portion, or even the whole, of its power should be intrusted : 
provided he held his appointment during the pleasure of his 
electors, or during some definite but short period of time, it 
would not be a Monarchy. So a government would be Demo- 
cratic in which the bulk of the people appointed a chief magis- 
trate with full powers, or a council with full powers : provided 
those powers were only exercised during the pleasure of the 
electors, or during some definite but short period of time, it 
would neither be a Monarchy in the one case, nor an Aristocracy 
in the other. If the people had the selection of the governing 
body among the privileged class, but were confined to that class 
in their choice, and could not themselves exercise any power, 
the government would still be Aristocratic, unless the privileged 
class were so numerous and contained persons so insignificant as 

VOL. II. B 



2 OF THE NATURE OF ARISTOCRACY IN GENERAL. [CH. I. 

to be mere instruments in the hands of the electors ; in which 
case the government would be substantially Democratic, and 
could not fail speedily to become purely such by the abrogation 
of all exclusive privileges. The essence of an Aristocracy is the 
existence of a privileged class which engrosses the supreme 
power, and has sufficient force to resist the changes that any 
intermixture of Monarchial or Democratical institutions tend to 
introduce in favour of monarchy or of democracy respectively. 

There have been but few instances of a pure aristocracy or of 
a pure democracy, and governments have frequently been con- 
sidered as aristocratic merely because there was lodged a great 
power in one class, or democratic because the citizens at large 
had much authority. Nor has it been rare to find reasoners 
misled by a name, and confounding the distribution of power 
according to certain rules with its distribution according to classes. 
Thus nothing can be more inaccurate than to consider the 
earliest Roman and Athenian governments as aristocracies merely 
because a considerable portion of the people in each were ex- 
cluded from power. In the former, after the expulsion of the 
kings, the powers of government are represented as vested ex- 
clusively in the families of rank, the nobles or patricians ; in 
the latter the class of citizens alone are said to have governed the 
state ; and in both it is inferred that the body of the people, the 
inhabitants at large, were excluded from all direct authority. 
But it must be remembered that the privileged families in Rome 
were the whole free people of whom the founders of the city 
consisted, or the descendants of those freemen ; and the com- 
moners or plebeians were either liberated slaves or foreigners 
who had settled in the state. Consequently the governing body 
was the community at large, subject to certain exceptions, and 
could no more be deemed a separate order than Protestants in 
Ireland, before the abrogation of the penal laws, could be correctly 
regarded as a separate order and called an aristocracy as contra- 
distinguished from the Catholics, or than British-born subjects 
at this day can be deemed a separate order from aliens and 
forming an aristocracy in the government. In fact, during the 
reign of the first kings and until the time of Ancus Martius there 
were no commoners or plebeians at all, the people consisting 
wholly of the patricians, or free and freely descended persons, 
and their clients, retainers, or dependents ; and though these 



CH. I.] CONSTITUTIONS OF ATHENS AND ROME. 3 

dependents had no more political functions than the slaves, they 
formed like them parts of the patron's or master's family; so 
that the power shared by the people with the king was sub- 
stantially vested in the whole body. Thus, too, the whole of 
the Athenian free people, not being aliens, formed the governing 
body: foreigners and slaves were disqualified; but their dis- 
qualification cannot be regarded as constituting an aristocracy in 
the free native Athenians. Indeed the observation applies still 
more strongly to Athens than to Rome ; for it is understood that 
the free Athenian people, in whom the government resided, 
amounted to upwards of eighty thousand, and the slaves and 
strangers to between three and four hundred thousand, of whom 
all but about forty thousand were in slavery. No classification 
can rank this constitution with aristocracies, that would not make 
the government of the United States of America an aristocracy 
in respect of the slave population. 

But although it would be a great abuse of language to consider 
these governments as aristocratic, yet they plainly contained the 
germs of aristocracy ; the elements existed from the beginning 
which might give birth to aristocratic government, because if 
the exclusive privileges continued to be vested in the smaller 
body, and the numbers of the persons excluded came to be 
greatly increased, it is clear that whatever might have been the 
original state of the select body, and though it might at first 
have constituted the whole nation, it would become an hereditary 
aristocracy when surrounded by a numerous body of disqualified 
people. This happened at Rome ; at Athens it cannot with any 
correctness be said to have taken place. At Rome the patricians 
formed a distinct and privileged class, far from numerous, and 
surrounded by a whole nation : at Athens the governing body 
continued to be composed of the whole free people not being 
aliens ; and the number of aliens and slaves constituting the rest 
of the state did not materially increase. But although the Ro- 
man aristocracy grew out of the exclusive privileges possessed 
by the original free citizens and their descendants, it is erroneous 
to conceive that the government was at any time a pure aristo- 
cracy. Before the republic it was an aristocratic monarchy of the 
elective kind ; afterwards at all times before the empire it was 
an aristocratic republic, in which the two orders of patricians and 
plebeians, nobles and commoners, had at different periods different 

b 2 



4 OF THE NATURE OF ARISTOCRACY IN GENERAL. [CH. I. 

proportions of power and influence, but in which there was at all 
times a mixture of the democratic with the aristocratic principle. 
In like manner, although the Athenian government never con- 
tained anything like the same admixture of aristocracy, yet there 
were privileges in practice enjoyed by those whose descent was 
distinguished. The Eupatridce, or well born, were eligible to 
offices from which freemen whose ancestors had been slaves or 
foreigners were excluded for several ages. Therefore, inde- 
pendent of the weight and influence which, even in the purest 
democracy, are possessed by persons of respectable station and 
descent, there were distinctions made in their favour, and recog- 
nised by the law, or, which is the same thing, in the practice 
and by the customs of the commonwealth. In so far there must 
be allowed to have been an aristocratic influence in the consti- 
tution. In Venice and in some of the smaller states of modern 
Italy are found instances of pure aristocracy; in the United 
States of America we find the only instance of a permanently 
pure democracy. In the former the whole government was in 
the hands of a comparatively small privileged class ; in the latter 
the whole people partake equally in the powers of government, 
and may by law equally exercise all its functions. But these 
are the only modern instances of the aristocratic and the demo- 
cratic principle being found pure for any considerable time, as 
Sparta is the only ancient example of a lasting aristocracy. The 
tendency of each is to ally itself more or less with the other, or 
with the monarchial principle, or with both. This tendency 
leads us to consider the nature of mixed government, and espe- 
cially of the checks and balances in which it consists. Without 
forming distinct ideas upon this important subject we cannot 
advantageously examine the nature, the effects, and the tendencies 
either of aristocratic or of popular government, and the inquiry 
• is equally essential with a view to its bearing upon the subject 
of mixed or limited monarchy. 



CH. II. j 



CHAPTER II. 

OF BALANCES AND CHECKS. 



Dogmatical denial of Checks- — This founded on theory alone — Doctrine of Checks 
misconceived — Doctrine explained — Its foundation — Fallacy of the objectors ex- 
posed — Illustration of the doctrine from joint Powers: Mutual veto: Factitious 
majority — Illustrations from English constitution — Proceedings since 1832 — Illus- 
tration from balance of Parties in Parliament — Illustration from Dynamics — Checks, 
proper or imperfect — Example of the proper Checks : Roman Constitution — Example 
of the imperfect Check : Venetian constitution— Absolute monarchies — English and 
American Constitutions — Senseless project of Peerage Reform. 

"Writers on the mixed constitution of England had formerly 
accustomed themselves to describe its component parts as the 
accurately poised and balanced portions or works of a machine, 
and to extol its structure as if this system of checks were in 
practice perfect, working according to the theory not only with- 
out any stoppages or derangement, but without any retardation 
from friction or resistance. This refined and somewhat exagger- 
ated praise gave rise to objectors who impugned the doctrine 
itself, as well as the extreme to which it had been pushed, and 
at last came to deny that such checks and balances could ever 
exist at all. The reasoners to whom we refer, and Mr. Bentham 
was the chief, held all notion of a balance to be absurd ; they 
treated it as a ridiculous fancy ; they maintained, with little argu- 
ment, but much fluency of dogmatical assertion, and, after the man- 
ner of dogmatists, with no small portion of contempt for their ad- 
versaries, that no such equipoise can ever exist ; they considered it 
as self-evident that if two powers are found in a constitution with 
different and adverse interests, one must defeat and overturn the 
other ; they denied that both could co-exist and act ; they treated 
the doctrine somewhat as theologians have been wont to treat 
the Manichean scheme of two principles ; contending that if the 
two antagonist forces were equal they must destroy each other, 
and the whole movement of the machine be stopped ; that, if they 
were unequal, the greater must prevail, and prevent the lesser 
from at all influencing the direction or the rate of the motion. 



6 OF BALANCES AND CHECKS. [CH. II. 

It seems not a little strange that this manner of viewing the 
subject should have been adopted in England, and with refer- 
ence to the government of England, where so many facts are 
constantly seen to expose its inaccuracy ; and equally singular 
that those reasoners should complain of the doctrine they were 
attacking as speculative, and theoretical, and fanciful, when, in 
truth, their own objections are founded upon theoretical views 
alone, and are at once removed by examining the actual facts. 
But their doctrine is not confined to our own constitution; it 
extends to all other forms of government, and seems to deny the 
possibility of effectual checks existing in any scheme of polity, 
consequently the possibility of any mixed government being 
formed. The necessity is thus obvious of considering more nearly 
the grounds of the theory. 

The main foundation of the objection to the doctrine which 
rests upon the counteracting influence of different powers in the 
same constitution will be perceived to be a misconception of 
that doctrine. When properly conceived and stated, it does 
not represent the conflicting authorities as accurately balancing 
one another; it only regards the influence of one power as 
capable of limiting the exercise of another, and it assumes that 
none of the powers is in itself absolute, or would even if left to 
itself be carried to all extremities. Thus it never was supposed 
that a despotic prince being established in any state, and at the 
same time an aristocracy of equally unlimited powers, there 
could be any other result of the conflict than a direct collision 
and the complete dominion of whichever body prevailed. Place 
the sultan of Turkey and the aristocracy of Venice together in 
one system, no one can doubt that either the Vizier or the 
Council of Ten would gain the upper hand, and either a pure 
despotism or a pure aristocracy would speedily be established. 
But the question is what would be the result of a combination 
between the powers of a sovereign accustomed to regard himself 
as one authority, perhaps to consider himself as the supreme, 
but still not as the exclusive depositary of arbitrary power, and 
a patrician body accustomed to consider themselves as the mag- 
nates in a country acknowledging a monarch. In such a system 
both parties will be disposed to resist each other, to encroach 
upon each other, even to risk an open rupture with each other 
upon certain occasions, by no means on every occasion, and up 



CH. II. DOCTRINE EXPLAINED. 7 

to a certain point only even on those special occasions, and by- 
no means to take extreme courses and push matters to an irre- 
parable rupture even on those few and excepted occasions. This 
brings us immediately to that which is at once the foundation of 
the doctrine of checks or balances, and the exposition of the 
fallacy upon which the objectors rest. 

The efficacy of the check always consists in the general reluc- 
tance of all parties to risk the consequences of driving matters 
to extremities. To avoid this each will yield a little ; and some- 
times, where the concession is not fatal, one will give up the 
point to the other, expecting in its turn to have some point of 
the like kind yielded at another time. Thus the result will be 
that neither body will carry everything its own way, but a course 
will be taken different from what would have been taken had 
there been only either the one body or the other in the system. 
As far as the interests of the different bodies are concerned those 
of both will be better consulted than if only one had existed, and 
in proportion as the interests of the whole community are iden- 
tified with those of both the bodies will the community be a 
gainer by the result of the conflict. But we are not now con- 
sidering the checks as to their beneficial tendency : we are on 
the question whether such checks can exist at all ; and it is plain 
that the compromise which the conflict produces shows the real 
existence and the efficacy of the checks. 

Let us then, to take the simplest instance, suppose there are 
two bodies in a state, the consent of both of which is required 
before any given measure can be adopted — for example, any 
law made — and that in this respect the two bodies are exactly 
of equal authority. A law is propounded and agreed to by one 
of them to which the other will not consent, or will only consent 
if it shall be materially altered. The first body refuses to alter 
it, and the second therefore will not concur in adopting it. For 
the present the change in the law cannot be effected, and must 
be deferred. The refusal of the second body may become less 
unqualified another year ; or the alterations now demanded may 
be such that the first body will agree to them, provided some one 
or two things more be given up. In the end the measure passes ; 
not such as either body would have desired had it been alone in 
the legislation, but such as both can agree to. 

But suppose now, that one of the two is far more powerful 



8 OF BALANCES AND CHECKS. [CH. II. 

than the other in fact, though by law both are equal. It is said 
that the more powerful body will compel the other to yield, and 
that so the check ceases to be effectual. But how can this compul- 
sion be exercised ? Only in one of two ways — either by the 
weaker body being afraid of resisting the stronger, for fear of its 
strength being used destructively, or by the stronger actually 
putting forth that strength ; in other words, either by fear of the 
government being overthrown, or by its actual subversion. This, 
however, is an extremity to which the stronger body will very 
rarely resort; in the great majority of instances it will prefer 
yielding many points to avoid the mischiefs of such a course ; 
and the weaker body, being aware of this, will generally make a 
stout resistance. The stronger may carry more points in this 
way than the weaker, because the real power of the two bodies 
being unequal the constitution inclines towards the one side. 
Thus, if the more powerful body be popular, the government 
leans towards democracy ; if patrician, it inclines to aristocracy ; 
but the leaning of the legislature being, as it must always be, in 
the direction of the more powerful body, so far from showing 
that the combined action of the two bodies produces no effect, 
only shows that the movement which results is according to the 
proportion of the two forces whose combined operation causes 
it, and that the government is carried on according to the nature 
and principles of its structure. 

Let us now, after these explanations, suppose the case of two 
bodies so wholly unmatched that one could in no way resist the 
other if they came in conflict ; and still it is manifest that their 
co-existence with opposite interests, and, consequently, inclina- 
tions, will produce a very different action in the whole govern- 
ment from what would have taken place had only the more 
powerful body existed ; will effectually cause some things to be 
done different from what the powerful body alone would have 
done, and prevent still more things from being done, which the 
more powerful body, if left to itself, would have done. The 
reluctance to bring on a collision will always operate, however 
disproportioned the forces may be. The opposition of even the 
weakest body must at any rate create delay, and thus give time 
for reflection. The influence of rational and prudent, as well as 
of timid men, thus obtains an opportunity of making itself felt. 
The force of the powerful body becomes divided, and a part is 



CH. II.] FALLACY OF THE OBJECTORS. 9 

thrown into the scale of the weaker body. The apprehension 
of an opposition, and its possible result, a collision, also tends to 
prevent many things from ever being propounded, and modifies 
beforehand the measures actually brought forward. Grant that 
the one body is ever so much an overmatch for the other, unless 
the disparity be such as to render all attempts at resistance im- 
possible (in which extreme case there cannot be said to exist 
two bodies), no one can maintain that the check is wholly 
destroyed, or quite inoperative, who is not prepared to contend, 
as a practical position, that all men and all bodies will, upon all 
occasions, without any reluctance or hesitation, do whatever they 
have the power to do. 

And herein lies the whole fallacy of the argument, or rather 
dogma, which denies the possibility of checks and balances. It 
is always taken for granted that every one is at all times sure to 
do whatever he is able to do. Now, if this were at all true, the 
whole frame of civil society must be destroyed, and all govern- 
ment subverted ; or, rather, no society ever could be established, 
and no government formed. What forms the principal strength 
of any government, and every constituted authority in any given 
government ? Doubtless the mutual distrust of the subjects is 
one very great security : the uncertainty in which each man is 
that others will support him if he resists. But this may be got 
over, and a common understanding may be come to for a com- 
mon object. How seldom does actual resistance take place ! 
How many times is it avoided when every inducement to it is 
presented, and every justification afforded, even in the view of 
the strictest reason and the purest patriotism ! How many 
oppressions will be borne ; how long a time will misrule, daily 
and hourly felt, be submitted to ; how much grievous suffering 
will be endured in quiet by millions, whose slightest movement 
could subvert the hateful tyranny, and restore general prosperity 
and ease ! The main cause of this patience is the universal dis- 
position to avoid running risks, and the rooted dislike of pushing 
things to an extremity. But there is a further and most material 
circumstance which gives force to the constitutional check ; it is 
legal ; it is known and felt to be according to strict law and 
right ; the wrong doer is felt to be he who would encroach and 
usurp ; however superior he may be in might, the right is on 
the opposite side : and this has a direct tendency at once to in- 



10 OF BALANCES AND CHECKS. [CH. II. 

vigorate the party resisting, however inferior in natural strength ; 
and to dishearten and weaken the party encroaching, however 
superior in actual power. 

Consider how in any state joint powers are exercised by 
subordinate authorities, and this will illustrate also the argu- 
ment as to the supreme authorities. There are two bodies, or 
a body and a single functionary, which have a mutual veto on 
each other's proceedings ; say, to take the simplest case, upon the 
choice of an office-bearer, the concurrence of both being required 
to make the election valid. According to the reasoning of those 
against whom we have been contending, the single functionary 
can always secure the appointment of his candidate, by refusing 
every person proposed by the body, until the man of his choice 
is returned. But this we know does not happen in practice, 
and cannot happen ; because neither party is disposed to bring 
matters to a collision by standing on its extreme rights, and 
both are disposed to have the choice effectually made. There- 
fore the knowledge that certain persons are sure to be rejected 
prevents the body from selecting these, and the necessity of 
appointing some one induces the functionary to accept a person 
different from the one he would most have preferred. Neither 
party obtains the result most desired, but a person is chosen 
against whom neither has any very insuperable objection; and 
the probability is that a better choice is made than if either 
singly had selected. 

Similar illustrations of the argument are afforded by those 
institutions in which more than a majority of voices is required 
to pronounce a valid decision, as where two-thirds or three- 
fourths must concur. The temptation given to minorities to 
hold out and govern the majority is in most cases a sufficient 
argument against such arrangements ; they are only admissible 
where a necessity for decision does not exist, as where the object 
is to prevent some measure from being adopted, or person elected, 
without a general concurrence, and where the entire interrup- 
tion of the proceeding is not accounted an evil. But practically 
the result is by no means such as the theoretical reasoners would 
expect ; the minority, having the power in its hands, is very often 
found to yield, and let a compromise take place. 

It is true that in these cases of subordinate bodies the law and 
the supreme government controls both, enables each to exercise 



CH. II.] ENGLISH AND OTHER CONSTITUTIONS. 1 1 

its rights, and prevents the one from encroaching or usurping 
upon the other. But in the case of co-ordinate bodies exercis- 
ing the supreme power, the substitute for the control of the law 
and the government is the reluctance which each feels to bring 
on a collision. The compromise is effected, the middle course 
taken, by the superior authorities under the influence of this dis- 
position, as in the cases of subordinate authorities under the 
control of the law and the influence of a similar reluctance 
jointly — the dislike, namely, to drive matters to the extremity 
of calling in the arm of the law, or of suspending the operation 
which the common interest demands should proceed. 

When we come to examine in detail the constitutions of the 
ancient commonwealths, especially of Athens and Rome, and 
also those of the modern republics, especially in Italy, we shall 
find many illustrations of the principles which have just now 
been adverted to. Even in those constitutions which seemed to 
confer unlimited power upon one body, if there was any other 
armed with authority, however feeble it might be in comparison, 
the whole power was not engrossed by the prevailing body, but 
a considerable share of influence was possessed also by the 
other, and the motion of the whole machine of government par- 
took of both the impulses in the different directions. 

But a more striking exemplification of the same doctrine is to 
be found in the practical working of a constitution with which 
we are much more familiar — that of our own country. It can- 
not be doubted that ever since the late reform in the representa- 
tion the measures of the legislature have been affected by the 
inclinations and opinions of the Lords as well as of the Commons. 
In the second Parliament after the reform there were very 
material changes effected by the Lords in the proposed constitu- 
tion of the municipal corporations, and measures affecting the 
church partook largely of the same influence, both as regarded 
tithes and church-rates. The majority in favour of further 
changes had no doubt been greatly diminished by the general 
election of 1834-5; but even in the first parliament after the 
reform, when the majority in favour of further change was about 
three to one, and when the members of the lower were marshalled 
against those of the upper house in the same proportion, there 
were some measures of importance thrown out in the Lords for 
which the anxiety of the Commons was matter of certainty, as 



12 OF BALANCES AND CHECKS. [CH. II. 

the Local Courts' Bill, lost too by the narrow majority of two votes, 
and other measures, as those relating to the Irish Church, which 
the Lords suffered very unwillingly to pass, and which were on 
the other hand materially altered in the Commons, with the mani- 
fest design of disarming opposition in the Lords. 

The share taken in legislation by each of the great parties 
which generally divide both Houses of Parliament as well as 
the nation at large, affords another illustration of the same prin- 
ciples. Between these parties there is little or nothing in com- 
mon : whatever may be said of the Houses of Parliament being 
divided each in itself, so that the Lords have a large influence 
in the Commons, and the Commons some supporters in the 
Lords, it cannot be said that the opposition have any supporters 
in the ranks of the Government party, and the Government 
party has always a decided preponderance in every question. 
And yet who can doubt that the measures of the Parliament are, 
at all times, considerably influenced by the opposition ? The 
reasoners, or rather dogmatists, who hold so cheap the idea of 
checks and balances, must needs suppose that when the mi- 
nisters have a majority which enables them to carry any question 
they please, and successfully to resist whatever their adversaries 
attempt, the whole course of legislation will take one direction, 
and the power of the opposition be no more felt than if no such 
body existed. The reverse is always found to be the case ; not 
a session passes, even under the rule of the most powerful admi- 
nistration, without important changes being effected in their 
plans by the efforts of their greatly outnumbered adversaries ; to 
say nothing of the many things in almost each measure which 
are altered in the plan before it is brought forward, altered to 
disarm the opposition, or to smooth the passage of the bill. 

In all these instances, whether of contending parties or con- 
flicting authorities in the State, the different forces combine to 
produce the result, the movement of the political machine. Its 
course is in the direction neither of the one force nor of the 
other, but in a direction between those which either would sepa- 
rately have made it take. As a body on which two forces 
operate at the same time, in different, but not in opposite direc- 
tions, moves in the diagonal between the two directions ; so does 
the legislature or the government of a country take the middle 
course between the two which the different authorities or in- 



CH. II.] PROPER AND IMPERFECT CHECKS. 13 

fluences would make it take if left to themselves. It will depend 
upon the proportion of the forces to each other, whether the di- 
rection taken shall incline more to the one or to the other ; but 
this affects not the argument; the course is affected by each, 
and the influence of each prevails so far as to check that of the 
other. 

In all that has been said on balances and checks, we have 
assumed that the counteraction was of one kind ; but there are, 
properly speaking, two descriptions of check, differing in kind 
as regards their structure and constitution, differing only in 
degree as regards their operation. The several authorities which 
are each armed with power or influence may belong to, be se- 
lected by, or Ibe otherwise under the control of the same class, 
and have generally the same interests ; or they may belong to, 
be selected by, or be otherwise under the control of different 
classes, and have essentially different interests. The former 
may be termed imperfect checks, the latter perfect, or proper 
checks. The counteracting influence exercised by the former 
will always be comparatively trifling, and sometimes will be 
hardly perceptible at all. Nevertheless some effect may in most 
cases be practically ascribed to it. For the most part it is rather 
to be regarded as the manner in which the power of the class is 
exercised — as its mode of operation— than as a real check. Yet 
in practice such divisions of the supreme authority, even though 
all the subordinate parts are under the same control, is found 
to have some tendency towards moderating its force, and a very 
great tendency to prevent mischief. This will immediately 
appear if we consider how these two kinds of checks act. 

Let us again take the simpler case of two powers. In the Eo- 
man Republic there were two co-ordinate bodies, the Comitia by 
Tribes, and the Comitia by Centuries. Their powers were equal, 
and they were composed of classes whose interests were widely 
different, numbers alone being regarded in the one, and property 
alone in the other. This is the most remarkable check, properly 
so called, of which we have any example, and we shall afterwards 
find that political inquirers much more practically sagacious 
than Mr. Bentham's followers, have found it exceedingly diffi- 
cult to account for the system working at all in which such an 
arrangement existed. Probably but for other contrivances, and 
certainly but for the gradual formation of its parts, such a con- 






14 OF BALANCES AND CHECKS. [CH. II. 

stitution could not have stood. The government of Venice 
affords another and a very opposite example, a remarkable in- 
stance of the imperfect check. It contained several bodies 
aimed with high authority, some of them with the highest; but 
all were formed out of the general or greater council, and that 
council was composed of the nobles alone. Thus the Pregadi, 
or senate, which was the executive or administrative council, 
may be said to have had supreme powers, though the Council 
of Ten, which also had the same supremacy, was more efficient, 
from being less numerous and more uniformly constituted, con- 
sisting only of fourteen persons, and these the most important 
in the state. But both those bodies were composed of the 
nobles, and were chosen by, selected from, acting under, and 
accountable to the general or greater council, the whole body of 
the nobles. Here, therefore, the aristocracy was everywhere 
predominant ; and the division or delegation of its powers was 
only for the purpose of exercising them the more conveniently, 
and indeed the more effectually. In one point of view, then, 
this division rather tended to increase the aristocratic power, 
and nothing like a counteraction can be perceived. Again, 
when an absolute sovereign, as we have seen (Chap. V., Part I.), 
delegates his powers to a minister or council, he only acts by 
those agents, and the superior power is still in one hand. Ne- 
vertheless some small mitigation even of despotic power is pro- 
duced by the subdivision. The petty chief of a tribe, so small 
that it can be governed by a single will, is probably more des- 
potic and exercises his power more absolutely than the head of 
any regular and extensive monarchy ; and the sultan and czar 
in their palaces are more despotic than in the rest of their domi- 
nions. So the mere existence of several councils at Venice 
must have tended to prevent some acts of violence which might 
have been done by a single body, numerous enough to prevent 
individual responsibility, and not too numerous to be efficient. 
This, however, is quite clear ; the existence of several bodies 
has a tendency to interpose delays and prevent rash councils 
and precipitate action. The safety of the system is thus better 
secured ; and so far the subdivision of authority has anything 
rather than the effect of checking its exercise. Yet as all violent 
measures are apt to be precipitate, and as delay and reflection 
must ever be favourable to both justice and mercy, the tendency 



CH. II.] ENGLISH HOUSE OF LORDS. 15 

upon the whole of the subdivision will be found towards miti- 
gating the exercise of arbitrary power. The great inferiority in 
fact of the efficiency of such checks, to the operation of those 
which are provided by the vesting of power in bodies differently 
constituted and having conflicting interests, is manifest. 

This difference may be further illustrated by referring to the 
constitution of England and the United States, in both of which 
the checks of the three members of the Legislature hold a middle 
place between the extreme cases of Rome and Venice, beside 
the further difference of there being an effective government in 
both England and America, so as to form a third component 
part of the constitution. The body which the American Senate 
represents is intimately connected with the body which chooses 
the House of Assembly, although the qualification of the electors 
being different, property may be said to be more immediately 
represented in the former, and numbers in the latter. In so far 
as the two bodies have different interests, and are chosen for 
different terms, the check belongs to the perfect class ; in so far as 
the influence of property among the electors of the representative 
assembly operates upon their choice, the check becomes of the 
imperfect kind. So in England the connexion between the Peers 
and the electors of the Commons, even since the late E,eform,makes 
the check more imperfect than by the strict theory of the constitu- 
tion it is supposed to be, and more imperfect than it would be if 
the Lords and the electors were bodies entirely separated. But 
in so far as the Lords differ from the nation at large in their in- 
terests, and in so far as they hold their places for life and by 
inheritance, the check is of the proper or perfect kind. 

Consider now what the effect would be of a plan which has 
frequently of late years been broached, and of which many per- 
sons were very recently much enamoured. The speculation 
was to deprive the House of Lords of its legislative functions, 
and to vest the whole power in an executive and a House of 
Commons. But the manifest absurdity of expecting any safe 
and cautious legislation from a single chamber made it necessary 
to devise a second for the purpose, it was said, of reconsidering 
the bills and correcting the errors into which the first chamber 
might fall. No doubt, the whole experience of parliament demon- 
strated clearly enough how great this necessity was, and men at 
once saw into what frightful difficulties the country must be 



16 OF BALANCES AND CHECKS. [CH. II. 

thrown if only one body had to discuss and decide upon all 
measures. But then nothing could be more ineffectual, even 
for revision, than the plan proposed. The second House would 
have differed very little from the first ; even if a higher qualifi- 
cation had been required, it would have been chosen for a small 
number of years only, because, had it been elected for life or for 
many years, it would have been liable to the very same objec- 
tions which had caused the House of Lords to be dispensed 
with. Therefore, not only would it have been no effectual 
check; that was not the object; but it would have given no 
effectual security for revision, which was the object proposed. It 
would have been a little, and but a little, better than adding so 
many stages to those through which bills must pass in the Com- 
mons as now constituted ; a little, and but a little additional 
security for reflection and revision would have been afforded. 
But the great security would have been wholly wanting, which 
results, and can only result, from the nature, structure, origin, 
and interests of the two bodies being entirely different, and 
which depends upon the full discussion only to be obtained from 
such really conflicting bodies. It deserves to be noted, that all 
these senseless projects have long since been abandoned by their 
thoughtless authors, who a few years ago considered the safety 
of the empire to depend upon what they termed " Peerage 
Reform." 






CH. III.] 17 



CHAPTEE III. 

PROGRESS AND CHANGES OF ARISTOCRACY OLIGARCHY. 



Tendency of Aristocratic and Democratic Constitutions to mix with others — Difference 
in this respect of Despotism — Tendency greatest in Aristocracies — Early pupillage 
of the People — Their progress to emancipation — Best course for the Aristocracy — 
Illustration from colonial emancipation — Natural introduction of Oligarchy — Its 
natural progress to greater exclusiveness — Its natural tendency to dissolution — Ex- 
amples from the Venetian, Genoese, Siennese, and Lucca Governments. 

We have in the outset of this, discussion remarked, that aristo- 
cratic and democratic constitutions have a much greater tendency 
to mix themselves with one another, and even with monarchical 
institutions, than either despotic or constitutional monarchies 
have to ally themselves with those of a popular nature. This 
arises from the different nature of those several governments. 
When a despotism is established, all influence, all movement 
ceases, except that which proceeds from the sovereign ; all 
power, the whole force of the state, centres of necessity in him. 
The least division of this force, the existence of any opposite will, 
unconnected with and independent of the monarch, would be 
destructive of the system. Consequently, the germs do not 
exist, out of which any popular institutions might grow ; there 
are no elements of gradual change; a single step towards it, 
however small, would, be equivalent to revolt, and being treated 
as such, would terminate the effort at once. Change can only 
arise from some unbearable opposition, or some intrigue in the 
family or among the connexions of the Prince : this to succeed 
must be ripened into action, and whatever may have been its 
origin, it has never any but one result, a change in the person or 
the family of the despot. The alliance of the monarchical with the 
aristocratic principle in the constitutional monarchies of Europe 
is no exception to this rule ; for these monarchies arose out of 
the feudal aristocracy as we have seen, and are only an illustra- 
tion of the tendency which the aristocratic principle has to ally 

VOL. II. c 



18 PROGRESS AND CHANGES OF ARISTOCRACY [cH. III. 

itself with other institutions. But the existence of aristocracy in 
constitutional monarchies produces a tendency to further admix- 
ture, which cannot exist in governments purely despotic ; and in 
proportion as these monarchies have more of the aristocratic or of 
the democratic institutions connected with them, will always be 
their tendency to further limitation or to progressive improvement. 
It is, however, in constitutions entirely popular, in those of 
which the main structure is either aristocratic or democratic or 
mixed monarchy, that the tendency to an alliance with other 
principles than those of the constitution is most remarkable, and 
much more in aristocracies than in republics. The reason is 
plain : the institutions which exist are of a nature to allow dis- 
cussion and consideration among either the whole or a consider- 
able proportion of the people. The desire of change has a free 
scope, even where it is founded upon no rational grounds, but 
much more where the circumstances of the government indicate 
its expediency or necessity. Thus, reforms tending towards a 
democracy may become a favourite object in a mixed monarchy, 
from the progress of the people in wealth, in power, and in im- 
provement ; or the evils of democratic ascendancy may suggest 
the return to a more purely monarchical polity. So in a demo- 
cracy, the necessity of repressing tumults and securing the fo- 
reign as well as domestic peace of the state may lead to enlarging 
the aristocratic influence, or still more probably to substituting 
a monarchical for a republican regimen. Both of these courses 
were taken in succession by almost all the Commonwealths 
upon the mainland of northern Italy. The aristocratic form, 
however, is still more liable to form such admixtures than 
the democratic ; and accordingly, except the Spartan Govern- 
ment in ancient times, and the Venetian in modern, there is no 
instance to be found of an aristocracy which did not, sooner or later, 
become either a democracy, as that of ancient Rome, or a petty 
monarchy, like those of the Italian States. The reason of aristo- 
cracies being thus naturally shortlived is obvious ; and it applies 
still more strongly to oligarchies, or the government in which, 
by an abuse of the system, there has been found a kind of aris- 
tocracay within an aristocracy, a few of the privileged class 
usurping the whole power to the exclusion of their fellows, just 
as these had at first usurped the supreme power to the exclusion 
of the people. 






CH. III.] OLIGARCHY. 19 

The period in a nation's progress at which the aristocratic 
power is naturally established, must always be while the body 
of the people are in a low state of refinement. Their power 
was in proportion feeble, and the upper classes, possessed 
of almost all the property, and beyond comparison better in- 
formed, as well as more skilful in all their arrangements, found 
it easy to retain in their hands the entire direction of public 
affairs. In fact, the bulk of the people being extremely ignorant 
of everything relating to the administration of the state, never 
thought of interfering, and only felt an interest in matters which 
immediately concerned themselves as individuals. Hence any 
disputes that arose between them and the superior or governing 
class related entirely to subjects of immediate and urgent indi- 
vidual interest, as the oppressions exercised at Rome by the 
patricians over their plebeian debtors, and their monopoly of the 
public lands without paying rent, or the feudal oppressions in 
modern Europe by taxation and the exaction of personal ser- 
vice. With the general management of public affairs it never 
occurred to the people that they had any concern; and their 
profound ignorance of everything which related to government 
kept them wholly aloof from all controversies respecting it, 
save only that in the Italian Commonwealths the people fre- 
quently required to have a voice in the choice of the chief 
magistrate. In all other respects, even in those republics, they 
never interfered as a body, and for their own rights or interests 
as opposed to those of the patricians. They were appealed to 
by the contending factions, and took a part with the one or the 
other ; but in almost constant indifference with respect to the 
subject matter of their contentions, and generally ignorant of the 
merits of the question, only taking part with individual leaders 
or leading families, and knowing little more of the opposite sides 
of the dispute than the names by which their adherents passed. 

But though such is necessarily the state of things in early 
ages, and the power which the people must necessarily always 
possess from their numbers is thus divided, and, as it were, 
dormant, from their ignorance and neglect, the progress of 
society by degrees increases their influence with their experience 
and information. In some cases, as at Rome, where the patri- 
cians originally bore a large proportion to the whole body of the 
people, the mere increase in the numbers of the plebeians brings 

c2 



20 PROGRESS AND CHANGES OF ARISTOCRACY — [CH. III. 

with it an augmentation of their relative force ; but in every case 
their wealth goes on increasing, and augments their influence. It 
thus happens, that as the weight of the people increases with the 
progress of society in knowledge and in wealth, they are ne- 
cessarily prepared for passing from the state of pupilage in 
which they must always be in earlier times ; and once prepared 
for their emancipation, it must, sooner or later, come with more 
or with less of violence if suddenly, safely and peaceably if 
gradually effected. The true wisdom of the aristocracy in all 
such cases is to foresee this necessary result, and to prepare for 
it betimes, as the true wisdom of the mother country always is to 
foresee the inevitable emancipation of her colonies, and to part 
from them in such a good and kindly spirit as will make them 
her natural friends when independent. The course which the 
aristocracy, like the mother country, invariably takes is to resist 
the change by every means in their power. But they are always 
obliged to yield somewhat ; and the apprehension that each conces- 
sion may give the people more power to demand further changes 
is the reason why they always resist the change, and often 
refuse to grant things in themselves of no importance to them, 
though beneficial to the people. The struggle being once 
begun, and the power of the people fully put forth, the aristo- 
cracy has never failed to take one course after finding that an 
admixture of democratic institutions only brought their own 
power nearer its close ; they have called in another auxiliary, 
and given both themselves and the plebeian party a master. The 
Romans were enslaved, as we shall find when their constitution 
comes to be examined in detail, by the aristocratic parties be- 
tween whom the corrupted plebeians might have held the 
balance till they overthrew the whole and re-established the re- 
public ; but instead of that, they became the instruments by 
which conflicting factions tore the country to pieces, and all 
finally submitted to a race of tyrants. In all the republics of 
modern Italy, with the exception of Venice, the aristocracy 
which usurped the government were gradually obliged to re- 
strict their own powers, but soon put an end to all conflict with 
the people by placing sovereign princes of their own order at 
the head of affairs, and changing the aristocracy into constitu- 
tional monarchy. 

The introduction of oligarchial power and its short duration 






CH. III.] OLIGARCHY. 21 

are natural and almost necessary attendants upon the aristocratic 
constitution. At first when the aristocratic body is not numerous, 
and all, or nearly all, its members are really endowed with the 
advantages of fortune, that is with wealth as well as with birth 
and rank, the supreme power is shared by them all ; and the 
struggle of parties is chiefly confined to maintaining an influence 
of a personal nature in directing public affairs. But this 
struggle soon leads to the design of exclusively possessing this 
great influence ; and one party generally endeavours to intro- 
duce such a monopoly, even against its equals in birth and 
wealth. The most ordinary course, however, is that a certain 
class of the whole body, without reference to party divisions, 
becomes distinguished from the great body of the patricians by 
its superior wealth and personal influence. This is sure to hap- 
pen when the body of the nobles becomes numerous, and con- 
sequently contains many poor individuals. The rights of nobility 
being enjoyed by all the children of each house, the fortune will 
not bear so great a subdivision as would suffice to give each a 
reasonable portion; and hence, independent of accidental mis- 
fortunes or personal extravagance reducing families to poverty, 
the inevitable tendency of every patrician body must be, as its 
numbers increase, to become composed of two classes, a wealthy 
and a poor. The consequence is almost as inevitable that an 
attempt will be made by the leading families, or a portion of the 
leading families, to exclude all the rest, and to retain in their 
hands the exclusive authority of the government. This object 
is effected in two ways ; sometimes the law is made which vests 
power in a small body, or comparatively small body, of the pa- 
tricians, and this may be termed the strict or legal oligarchy. 
But even where this arrangement is not made, the influence of 
wealth gives a sway to the leading families, and the others are 
practically excluded from the government, though not by law ; 
they are legally capable of exercising all the functions of govern- 
ment, but do not in fact share in them ; and this may be termed 
the natural oligarchy. 

Of the stricter oligarchy, the pure oligarchial constitution 
permanently established, there have not been many examples, 
partly because the resistance of the whole body of this privileged 
order tended to prevent its establishment; partly because, when 
once established, the same cause has generally subverted such 



22 l'ROGRESS AND CHANGES OF ARISTOCRACY. [CH. III. 

governments very soon after' their formation. It is the natural 
tendency of the aristocratic form generally to mix itself with 
either the democratic or monarchical, — with the former from the 
progress of popular influence, — with the latter from the attempts 
of the aristocracy to obstruct the growth of that influence, or of 
each party to strengthen itself against the other. But the tendency 
of an oligarchy is almost inevitably to its destruction, and the 
restoration of the whole patrician body's power. It is the still 
more inevitable, indeed the necessary, tendency of an oligarchy, 
as long as it exists unchanged by law, to become more and more 
close, confined to fewer hands, and thus rendered more odious and 
oppressive to the rest of the community. For the select class, if 
the power is hereditary, becomes less numerous by the natural 
extinction of families, and if formed by perpetual self-election it 
becomes gradually more narrow in consequence of the disposition 
in each set at all times to confine it, and exclude as much as 
possible the successors who on each vacancy would keep up the 
number. Thus at Bologna, the senate had the power of creating 
new nobles, but hardly ever exercised it except in favour of 
needy and therefore dependent persons. Thus, too, at Venice, 
from the year 1297, there was a pure oligarchy formed ; a cer- 
(» tain number of families usurped the whole power of the govern- 
ment, and excluded all the rest. In the course of a few years, 
however, those who were excluded obtained the repeal of this 
ordinance, probably because they were taking steps to obtain the 
support of the other orders, which would have subverted the 
aristocracy entirely, and therefore the oligarchs preferred any- 
thing to that catastrophe. In 1319 the whole nobles were again 
admitted, but the government was confined to them. — Genoa 
had an oligarchial government for some years, at the end of 
which the distinction was abolished. — Sienna was under a pure 
oligarchy from 1290 to 1354; and the government of Lucca be- 
came oligarchial in 1554 by the Martinian Law, which confined 
all power to a certain class of families. This oligarchy lasted 
longer than any of which we have the history. It continued 
undisturbed till 1799 ; and the number of families eligible to 
office had been reduced so low by extinction that there were 
not enough to fill the public offices. 



ch. iv.] 23 



CHAPTER IV. 

"FOUNDATION OF ARISTOCRACY IN THE NATURE OF THINGS. 

NATURAL ARISTOCRACY. 



Equality impossible — Attempts made to ensure it — Influence of independent circum- 
stances — Of wealth — Reflex operation—Upstart superiority — Foundation of respect 
for hereditary distinctions — Reflex feeling — Hereditary superiority improves men 
— Effects of improvement — Respect for rank — Natural — Essential to artificial Aris- 
tocracy — Illustrations from Rome, Sparta, Feudal Government, Modern Italy — 
Effect of Natural Aristocracy in destroying Oligarchy — Political profession impos- 
sible — It must necessarily be a corrupt trade — Athenian State orators — Advantages 
and disadvantages of a Political profession. 

In order rightly to understand both the real foundations of 
aristocratic government, and the limits which the nature of 
things has affixed to its force and its duration, it is necessary 
that we examine the nature and the foundation of what may be 
termed the Natural Aristocracy. We have already made some 
observations upon it, as far as was necessary for discussing 
the principles and explaining the structure of constitutional 
monarchy ; but we must now enter more fully into this very 
important subject. 

The notion of equality, or anything approaching to equality, 
among the different members of any community, is altogether 
wild and fantastic. All the attempts that have ever been made 
to secure it have been of necessity confined to merely pro- 
hibiting positive distinctions of rank and privilege, which can 
always be effected, and to preventing the unequal distribution 
of wealth, which never can be accomplished, though laws may 
be devised for rendering this more slow, to the great injury of 
the public interests, and restraining of individual liberty. But 
the diversities in human character and genius, the natural pro- 
pensities of the human mind, the different actions performed by 
men, or which have been performed by their ancestors, lay the 
foundations of a natural aristocracy far deeper and far more 
wide than any legislative provisions have ever even attempted 
to reach — because no such provisions can possibly obliterate tbe 



24 NATURAL ARISTOCRACY. [CH. IV. 

distinctions thus created by the essential nature of man. In 
examining these distinctions we shall also regard the distinctions 
of wealth ; because laws never can wholly prevent its unequal 
distribution, although they may interpose obstacles to it. 

1. The actual possession of any superiority, whether in wealth 
or in personal qualities, imposes a certain respect, begets a 
certain deference in the community at large of inferior men. 
Independence, if not influence and command, are possessed by 
the favoured few. The mere circumstance of their small 
number is something ; their having, without dispute, what all 
would wish to have, is more. A man of this class never pays 
court to you : he may be civil, and you thank him for it ; he 
never has any occasion to be your suitor. Now nothing more 
tends to lessen respect for any one than his courting you, by 
which he seems to acknowledge you his superior. Even talents 
are less powerful in this respect than wealth, because they are 
less secure to their possessor, and their extent is less a matter of 
certain, undisputed estimate. All this, too, is wholly inde- 
pendent of the positive and certain influence which superiority, 
whether of riches or endowments, bestows, — the power of com- 
manding other men's services, assisting them in their necessities, 
contributing to their comfort or advancement. Nay, so great is 
the tendency to recognise this influence, that you shall con • 
stantly see a person of great affluence exercise an extraordinary 
power over others, from the fact of feeling that they may one 
day be indebted to him for favours, though in reality no such 
thing is in any degree probable. Persons of known wealth 
could be named in our own day, and in this country so boastful 
of its independent spirit, who never were known to assist any 
literary man, and probably never would had they lived for a 
century, and of whom all connected with the press stood in a 
kind of awe approaching to reverence, merely because they 
could, if they would, befriend the caste of authors. 

A reflex feeling greatly increases this habitual deference for 
personal or patrimonial superiority. He who is possessed of it 
is known to be looked up to by all, or almost all others. This 
we cannot deny, and we cannot prevent. Be our own views 
ever so enlightened, our disposition ever so independent, our 
contempt of wealth ever so philosophical, we are aware that the 
party is an object of observance with the bulk of mankind, and 



ch. iv.] lo:ng possession of superiority. 25 

this makes us view him as something different from what we 
really know him to be. 

2. The length of time during which any one has possessed 
the attributes that command respect forms a very material in- 
gredient in modifying or assessing the amount of that, respect. 
This amount bears always some definite proportion to the length 
of possession; and that, not only because of the greater security 
which long possession implies, but because there is an invincible 
disposition in men to consider with less respect not only those 
who are now on the same level with themselves, but those who 
only recently were lifted above that level. Indeed the supe- 
riority lately attained is counteracted by the impatience with 
which men regard the elevation of those whom they have 
known as their equals. " But t'other day he was no better than 
ourselves " is a saying in all mouths on such occasions, and 
comes from a sentiment that nature implants in all bosoms. 
This even applies to men suddenly and late in life raised by 
the unexpected acquisition of learning. The unexpected deve- 
lopment of genius has no such counteragent to the admiration 
which it naturally excites. The author of the ' Botanic Gar- 
den' * or the Waverley Novels, the inventors of printing or the 
spinning-jenny, the discoverer of America, were ungrudgingly 
hailed as great benefactors of their race, large contributors to 
the pleasures or the profits of the world. The individual, in 
such instances as these, is regarded as having all along pos- 
sessed the same happy genius which late in life burst forth with 
such resplendent lustre. But an ignorant mechanic or peasant, 
who has late in life become possessed of great learning, never 
fails to meet from the bulk of mankind with somewhat of the 
slight and envy that haunt the path of upstart wealth. " But 
yesterday he knew no more than we did" is sometimes said as 
well as " But yesterday he was no richer than ourselves." 

3. It is only carrying the same feeling a step further to 
respect the distinctions which are handed down from ancestors 
more than those which are acquired by their present possessor. 
Not only is the time of enjoyment, generally speaking, longer, 
but no one can ever recollect the party unendowed with the 

* Never was there a greater sacrifice of fair dealing and sound taste to party spite 
than in the running down of this poem by Mr. Canning and his associates. With all 
its defects, and they are the defects of the didactic style and not of the p f >et, there are 
in this splendid poem passages of almost unequalled magnificence, and the feelings, 
which pervade it are always enlightened and humane. 



26 NATURAL ARISTOCRACY. [CH. IV. 

superiority — no one can remember him naked of the marks of 
distinction. He never was on the same level with ourselves. 
Accordingly the impatience of superiority is in this case apt to 
go back, and find that at least his father or his grandfather was 
" No better than ourselves." Thus all novelty has the levelling 
tendency ; it tends to remove the distinction on which the di- 
versity is built ; it is one fewer mark, one difference more taken 
away — and the whole question is one of differences and dis- 
tinctions. This is really the foundation of respect for hereditary 
honours. " New nobility," Lord Bacon says, " is but the act 
of power ; ancient nobility is the act of time." * Even virtue 
and genius, and mental acquirements, are in some sort affected 
by this law of our nature. A man is himself no better for his 
ancestor having been virtuous, more able, more learned than 
others, or for being sprung from a race which had rendered 
precious services to their country. A man is no worse for his 
forefathers having been of a grovelling nature, or infamous life. 
Yet where is the individual who can place himself above the 
pride of descending from Marlborough or Blake, Newton or 
Watt ? And where is the sage whose wisdom is so captious 
or heart so callous as to refuse the epithet of honest or natural 
to such pride as this ? 

The reflex feeling here again comes into action. As it is a 
fact, perhaps an ultimate fact incapable of being resolved into 
any more general, that almost all men feel this respect, place 
this value upon hereditary distinctions, ancestral honours come 
to be prized, even by those who would not otherwise esteem 
them. We thus respect him who possesses such honours, be- 
cause we know that he is the object of deference and respect to 
almost all men, and is thus distinguished from ourselves ; nay, 
we love to associate with him, on account of other men running 
after him, and on account of his acquaintance being of necessity 
narrowly limited, as well as highly prized. 

4. The hereditary possession of superiority in wealth and 
station has a certain effect upon the character and habits of the 
individual, and therefore an intrinsic as well as external and 
accidental value in exalting the possessor. He never can have 
been the associate of the low and the worthless ; he has never 
known any servile employment or unworthy courses ; he has 



CH. IV.] PROGRESS OF THE HEREDITARY ARISTOCRACY. 27 

never been tarnished with meanness or depressed by dependence ; 
never suffered under insult or oppression ; never had his feel- 
ings outraged or his taste offended and perverted by squalid or 
sordid contacts. His feelings may be supposed more delicate, his 
spirit more lofty, his principles more pure, than those who have 
struggled with hard fortunes, and in whom the school of adver- 
sity has compensated for the vigour which its discipline imparts, 
by the coarseness and callousness which its rod is apt to imprint. 

It is upon the influence and authority which the circumstances 
just now considered bestow upon the superior members of every 
community, that their power in every state naturally is built. 
They have the greatest weight and confer the most power in 
less enlightened ages ; the progress of knowledge and the general 
improvement of the people never fail to lessen their influence, 
with the exception of the last-mentioned circumstance, which is 
most prized in a highly refined state of society, and with the 
further exception of the respect due to virtue and capacity. But 
no progress in improvement and no power obtained by the mass 
of any community can ever destroy the influence of the natural 
aristocracy, efface the distinctions which we have been describing, 
or level the ranks or natural orders to which those distinctions 
give rise. Indeed the beneficial effects produced by such gra- 
dations, in maintaining the peace and good order of society, are 
not diminished by the progress of improvement, because as much 
is gained of additional respect for the natural aristocracy by 
reflection and the perception of the expediency of giving it due 
weight, as may be lost in the more vulgar deference to wealth 
and birth. 

The artificial aristocracy must always, to a certain degree, be 
connected with and founded upon the natural. No force of 
positive institutions could ever maintain the power of a body of 
nobles who had no wealth, or talents, or services to distinguish 
them from the rest of the community. All nobility therefore has, 
in all ages and countries, been originally founded upon natural 
aristocracy ; and there never has been any instance of a nobility 
preserving its power, or even its place in society, without retain- 
ing also a large share of the natural advantages in which its supe- 
riority originated. The Patrician order at Rome was composed 
of the original freemen who founded the State, and their de- 
scendants born in the republic, and not aliens. But they also 



28 NATURAL ARISTOCRACY. [CH. IV. 

possessed by far the greater share of the land, the principal 
wealth of the community. — The Spartan aristocracy had a similar 
origin and endowment, as we shall afterwards see. — When the 
chiefs who overran the Itoman empire established themselves 
in their new conquests, we have seen that they formed a privi- 
leged body of their principal companions in arms, who were the 
most daring or most skilful leaders in their armies, and whom 
they endowed with ample landed possessions. The foundation 
of the feudal aristocracy was the possession at first of the whole 
landed property, ever afterwards of by far the largest portion of it. 
When in the course of time other classes of the community ob- 
tained landed rights, the nobles still retained exclusive rights of 
a peculiar description in the soil ; and even when all such dis- 
tinction was removed, and every one could hold his land by the 
noble tenures, though himself not noble, there was still the 
greatest share of landed wealth vested in the patricians. When 
commerce introduced a rival class of possessors, the influence of 
the natural aristocracy gained for the hereditary nobles the re- 
spect, and from thence the influence, which we have seen flows 
inevitably towards those whose wealth is hereditary. — In the 
Italian republics commercial wealth early rivalled feudal ; and a 
civic aristocracy was formed of the classes who had long enjoyed 
this distinction, and the other superiorities constituted by capa- 
city, public services, and long habits of command. The families 
thus distinguished were the aristocracy of these commonwealths, 
and their influence was established exactly as we have seen the 
natural respect for station, riches, and merits always operate. 
The civic nobility thus formed soon engrossed exclusive privi- 
leges, and became, by artificial means, the governing body of the 
state. In all these communities attempts were made to exclude 
the bulk of the people, even the bulk of the wealthier classes, 
and in all, the nobles for some time succeeded in confining the 
political power to their own order, although their origin was 
exactly their filling the same station which the richer and more 
eminent families of the people now occupied. The descendants 
of the noble families becoming numerous, more of them became 
of course both stripped of wealth and deprived of all the other 
attributes of natural aristocracy. But a sufficient number of the 
order coutinued so endowed as to preserve their natural influ- 
ence, and to have a real weight in the community, independent of 



CH. IV.] PROFESSION OF POLITICIAN. 29 

the privileges vested in them by the laws and customs of the 
state. 

But it is to be observed that the constant tendency of the 
natural aristocracy is twofold. It both restrains the power of 
the whole patrician body, where a proper or artificial aristocracy 
is established, and where no privilege is possessed by one branch 
of the nobles over the rest ; and it prevents the long exclusion 
of the bulk of the noble order — in other words, it brings the 
existence of an oligarchy to a close, as we have seen happened 
in Venice and Genoa, the cases being but rare and inconsider- 
able, as at Sienna and Lucca, in which the oligarchy was of 
long continuance. 

Thus there would, in all communities, necessarily rise to influ- 
ence a natural aristocracy, whether the laws and the forms of the 
constitution established a privileged order or not. This natural 
aristocracy would obtain a considerable share of real power, al- 
though there should be no order of men legally privileged, and 
would affect the distribution of influence among the members of 
a privileged order, where the law recognised such a body, arid 
invested its whole number with equal direct power. This neces- 
sity grows out of the impossibility that there should ever exist 
to any extent, and for any length of time, a political profession. 
This impossibility appears manifest from several considerations. 

1. If there is party spirit or party conduct in any given 
state, then clearly men can only drive the trade of politics by 
being corrupt or factious, or both, because, instead of only qua- 
lifying themselves to gain their livelihood by merit, they must 
also either quit their party or force it into power. Suppose a 
lawyer could only obtain practice by truckling to the bench, or 
by courting attorneys, he would be less corrupt than the trading 
political adventurer, the man who engaged in politics as a spe- 
culation of gain, because the lawyer could not advance his own 
interest by betraying his client's ; whereas the trafficking poli- 
tician must betray his client, the country, in order to live, and 
at the very least must set its interest at nought. He may do 
his duty, because occasionally his interest may coincide with his 
principles or opinions ; but this does not necessarily happen, 
and in order to live he must regard only that which works for 
his party and himself. 

2. Suppose party to be unknown in the given state, still cor- 



30 NATURAL ARISTOCRACY. [cH. IV. 

ruption is inevitable, because whoever has the dispensation of 
patronage must be gained ; and hence counsels, pleasing rather 
than wholesome or useful, must be given. The political trader, 
like the player, who lives to please, must please to live. But 
unhappily there must also be in his composition a little of the 
prostitute as well as of the more honest player. 

3. But it is needless canvassing what must happen in a state 
devoid of party connexions. Such connexions always must exist 
to the extent of our present argument, for the government of 
every country must be conducted on one set of principles or 
another. But the existence of the political profession converts 
this state of things into the ordinary, vulgar, and worst species 
of party. 

4. If it be said, " You can pay the political man," the ground 
is furnished for considering who is to select the person that shall 
be paid. Every man who pleases cannot be allowed to become 
the stipendiary servant of the public. Some selection there must 
needs be. Then this only adds one new class of functionaries 
to those already employed by the state ; and some one must 
appoint them, like the rest. 

5. At Athens there were ten state orators, and hardly any one 
else ever took part in the debates of either the Assembly or the 
Senate. But all persons must undergo a severe scrutiny before 
they were even allowed to speak at all. The concealment of any 
offence or other disqualification on this inquiry was severely 
punishable ; and not only pure Attic descent, but the possession 
of property in Attica, was a necessary qualification for being 
appointed a public orator. There is great doubt on the question 
whether they received any salary or not. It certainly never 
could have exceeded a very small sum, because we know that 
the judges (or rather jurors) had only a groat of our money 
each sitting ; there were 6000 persons qualified to act as jurors, 
and the choice being by lot, each could only be selected to sit on 
trials 100 times in a year, and gain about thirty shillings, which 
small sum the pay of a state orator could not much exceed. If 
our members of parliament were paid, as some unreflecting per- 
sons recommend, from a foolish idea that it would remove one 
of the obstacles to the lower classes sitting in the legislature, the 
only result would be a great increase of corruption at elections, 
and a complete subserviency of the representative to the will and 



CH. IV.] POLITICAL PROFESSION. 31 

caprice of his constituents — a subserviency utterly destructive of 
the deliberative functions so essential to the representative 
system. 

All these reasons, which show the profligacy that must arise 
out of the existence of a political trade or profession, are decisive 
against its possibility, because no institution can endure in a 
popular government, whether aristocratic, democratic, or mixed, 
which inevitably leads to corruption and to violation of public 
duty. Hence it follows as a necessary consequence, that the 
administration of public affairs must ultimately, nay, in a very 
short time, become substantially vested in the natural aristocracy 
of any country — the classes qualified by property, by respect- 
ability of character, by capacity and acquirements, by experience 
and services, to take the lead among their fellow- citizens. 
Where there is no order privileged by law, this class will form 
such an order in practice and in fact. Where there is a privi- 
leged order, in whom, either exclusively or rateably with others, 
power resides by law, when this order becomes numerous the 
portion of it distinguished from the rest by the natural aristo- 
cracy will obtain the lead. 

We have here only been considering the subject of a political 
profession in its connexion with the question of natural aristo- 
cracy. It may be proper to add a few words relative to the 
opinion of those who regard such a profession as wanted in the 
management of state affairs. These reasoners are led away by 
the notion that the principle of the division of labour is applicable 
to the work of government, and they contend that men must 
devote themselves exclusively to political science, in order to 
qualify themselves for conducting the public councils. It is 
exceedingly common to hear the argument put thus : any com- 
mon handicraft can be learned only by serving an apprenticeship 
to it; then how can men suddenly learn the difficult art of 
government? One great fallacy in this argument is, that no 
person ever contended for the intrusting of government to 
ignorant or inexperienced hands ; that no person ever even con- 
tended for having the government of a country administered by 
men all of whom had other serious occupations to which they 
were devoted ; and that the only question really is whether or 
not the political caste shall be composed of men whose circum- 
stances are independent ; whether it shall consist of men who 



32 NATURAL ARISTOCRACY. [CH. IV" 

seek their livelihood by it as a profession, or of men who, well 
able to subsist without it, pursue it from motives of ambition or 
public spirit, vanity or love of patronage, and possibly with the 
view of adding to a fortune already independent. 

It must be admitted on the one hand that if only men in easy 
circumstances, and having no professional pursuits, engage in 
politics, there will be excluded from the public service many 
persons of great talents and integrity, whose fortunes are small. 
But. on the other hand, the liberal professions themselves can 
only be pursued by persons of certain means, because no man 
can, for some years, gain his bread by them ; and yet no one 
ever complained that this excluded the public from the benefit 
of able lawyers, physicians, or divines, among men who might be 
born in the humbler walks of life. And the difficulty, or rather 
the impossibility, is just as great of so arranging a political trade 
as to enable all who are qualified for it by their talents and 
virtues to enter into it. Then we must not lose sight of the great 
mischiefs arising from having a large class of men whose sub- 
sistence depends upon their success as political adventurers ; for 
this really means that they must seek after place at all hazards. 
"We have already shown to what evil consequences this kind of 
contest must inevitably lead. 

The greatest oversight, however, of those who argue for a 
political profession consists in this : they do not consider that in 
every ordinary profession the confidence of the customer, or 
employer, is given the more freely and the more entirely if he 
knows that the professional man follows no other vocation. The 
more he is known to depend on his calling, the more he is 
trusted. But in the political calling it is just the reverse; no 
man is so little valued, none so little trusted, as he who is known 
to have no other means of subsistence. Who will ever acknow- 
ledge that his livelihood depends upon his success in parliament ? 
Who in the law, or the church, or in trade, ever hesitated to 
profess that his whole reliance, and that of his family, was upon 
his professional gains ? The public may be apt to overrate the 
independence of wealthy men, because they who have no need 
of money are exposed to feel the force of other temptations. But 
to a certain extent and to a great extent it is quite true, that 
needy men are apt to be dependent, even if we charitably refuse 
our faith to the saying, that " an empty bag will not stand upright." 



CH. IV.] POLITICAL PROFESSION. 33 

It is not to be doubted that sufficient political knowledge may 
be acquired, and habits of public business may be formed, by 
men busily engaged in other professions. Mercantile men have 
often distinguished themselves in the senate, sometimes in the 
councils of their country. Lawyers have always borne a 
forward part both in council and in debate. Soldiers have 
often displayed great statesmanlike qualities. Perhaps the 
greatest captains have always been among the greatest statesmen 
in every age and in all countries. It is an error as gross as it 
is general to compare the training required for learning a com- 
mon handicraft to that which is necessary for fitting men to 
govern their fellow-creatures. No reading, no reflection, no 
observation, will teach manual dexterity. 

We may on the whole conclude that the evils greatly counter- 
balance any advantage which can reasonably be expected to 
result from the existence of a political profession, which men 
never should follow for earning their subsistence. 



The most important practical considerations flow from atten- 
tively examining the nature and tendency of the Natural Aris- 
tocracy. Of these it may suffice that we mention two : the 
security afforded in every popular government, whether aristo- 
cratic, democratic, or mixed monarchical, against the incapable 
classes of the community administering its affairs ; and the safety 
with which in any government except a despotism political rights 
may be intrusted to the people, in so far as regards the choice 
of their rulers. It is quite manifest that the principal weight in 
the State will always be possessed by those whom the Natural 
Aristocracy designates as its rulers ; the class best qualified to 
discharge that important function. Men of education, of inte- 
grity, of independent fortune, of leisure, of learning, — men culti- 
vated as well as capable, — will always be preferred by the great 
majority of the people themselves as their rulers and their 
representatives. In an aristocratic country, as Poland and 
Hungary, the noble who belongs to this naturally privileged 
class will always bear sway over him whom the law alone clothes 
with privilege ; and were universal suffrage established in 
England, not a single peasant or artisan would be returned to 
Parliament. 

vol, n. D 



34 [ch. 



CHAPTER V. 

OF PARTY. 

Origin of Party — Aristocracy most exposed to it — Venice the only exception — Justifi- 
able party unions — Factious System — Undermines principle — Destroys confidence 
in Statesmen — Corrupts private morals — Unites sordid motives with pure — Produces 
self- deception —Destroys regard for truth — Promotes abuse of the Press — Gives scope 
to malignant feelings — Passage of Dante — Operation of Faction on inferior Partisans 
— Effects in paralysing the public Councils — In promoting treasonable proceedings 
— Defence of Party : Burke, Fox — Conclusion of this subject. 

The existence of parties in an aristocracy is one of the most 
inseparable attendants of that scheme of policy, and one of its 
greatest evils, although it affords almost the only check to the 
power of the governing class. Men among whom the supreme 
authority in any state is divided naturally desire each to engross 
a larger portion than falls fairly to his share. When the num- 
bers of the ruling class are considerable, the possession of power 
enjoyed by each individual is not such as to satisfy the natural 
appetite for dominion, an appetite ever whetted by a moderate 
indulgence too scanty to satiate it. The superiority over the 
bulk of the community being enjoyed by the whole order 
equally is assumed as a matter of course, and the object of all 
ambition is then to rise above the rest of the governing caste. 
Such elevation is the only distinction, except that of rank, ser- 
vices, and personal qualities ; the only distinction of the artificial 
beyond the distinctions proper to the natural aristocracy. Two 
consequences result : first, the most powerful of the order, the 
members most amply endowed with the gifts of fortune, whether 
of riches, or honours, or esteem for talents possessed and ser- 
vices rendered, seek to engross the whole power, to the exclusion 
of the rest of the order ; or secondly, a portion of these — a few 
individuals, sometimes a single individual or family — form de- 
signs of usurping an undue share of authority. The attempts of 
the first kind lead to an oligarchy ; those of the second either 
lead to a usurpation and tyranny, overthrowing the state, if 
successful, and if unsuccessful inoperative upon its constitution ; 
or they lead to acquiring a preponderating influence in the 



CH. V.] ORIGIN OF PARTY. 35 

administration of its affairs, without at all changing its govern- 
ment. The efforts made with this object in view, and the steps 
taken to attain it, give rise to party associations. No two or three 
families being sufficiently powerful to withstand the jealousy 
which such an attempt would excite universally in the rest of 
the order, the course taken is to extend the junction and com- 
prehend other families, and many of the inferior or more de- 
pendent nobles. The whole are thus leagued together for a 
common object, or an object professed to be common, but in 
reality for the purpose of obtaining and preserving the influence of 
the leaders in administering the government of the state. Nor is 
the combination confined to the members of the governing body ; 
the plebeians are appealed to, and the powerful noble families 
having dependants and followers among them secure support in 
case of any commotion to which the intrigues of faction may 
give rise, and obtain an appearance of force and power from the 
numbers of their adherents — an appearance calculated to give 
them weight with their own order. For it must be kept in 
mind that the nature of the government precludes the suppo- 
sition that any of the plebeian order, or even all the order 
acting together, can directly aid by lawful and constitutional 
means the proceedings of the party, inasmuch as the whole 
powers of the state are possessed exclusively by the patricians. 
But if one class of individuals or families thus combine and 
thus act for their own aggrandisement, their proceedings natu- 
rally bind together the other families and their adherents to 
resist the attempt. Hence the ruling body becomes divided 
into separate, opposing, and conflicting factions ; each having its 
adherents among the poorer nobles, who can directly afford 
support, being possessed of voices in the government ; and also 
among the plebeians, who can give no regular or direct support, 
having no such voices. 

The Venetian constitution presents the only instance of an 
aristocracy in which parties were little if at all known, and 
had certainly no considerable influence upon the working of the 
government, or the administration of public affairs. The fatal 
tendency of faction to destroy the existence of such a govern- 
ment, and constantly to mar its operations, early introduced an 
arrangement by which all such disturbing forces were counter- 
acted. The arbitrary dictatorial powers conferred upon the 
Council of Ten made it as impossible for a faction to gain any 

d2 



36 or PARTY. [ch. v. 

head in ordinary times, as the dictatorship at Rome rendered all 
factions movements impracticable while that power existed on 
some extraordinary occasions. The unexampled duration of the 
Venetian government without suffering any change was the 
result of this extraordinary provision in its structure. All the 
other aristocratic republics of Italy were, as we shall see, the 
hotbeds of constant factious combinations, and the scenes and 
the victims of their unprincipled operations. 

If the nobles were only animated by a regard for the public — 
the good of the state at large — or even if they were only in- 
fluenced by a regard for the interests of their own order, no 
such party divisions could have place, because no such attempts 
to engross the direction of the public affairs would be carried 
further than was dictated by a conscientious desire to further 
the progress of certain principles and secure the adoption of 
certain measures. While confined within these narrow bounds, 
nothing deserving the name of party or faction could exist. 
Men differ in their opinions ; the line of policy which one sin- 
cerely believes most conducive to the public good, appears to 
another less expedient, or positively fraught with peril. Thus 
differing, each may honestly endeavour to promote his own 
views, and may consistently join with others who entertain the 
same opinions. Great heats may even be engendered by this 
collision ; long subsisting animosities may exasperate the parties 
against each other ; but the difference is in the principles really 
adopted, and the course pursued is dictated by that real differ- 
ence. Therefore it never can go beyond a certain safe point, 
because it will always yield to the prevailing regard for the 
public good, and will therefore stop short of any proceeding by 
which that good can be assailed or exposed to peril. In such 
combinations and in such conduct there is nothing blame- 
worthy. They do not merit the name of factious; they can 
hardly even be termed party proceedings. 

But it is a very different and a very pernicious kind of party 
to which the term faction is generally applied, and which arises 
out of the contentions for power, and not out of the desire to 
further principles; and this weed is the natural growth of 
popular, but most of all, aristocratic government. Men bind 
themselves together, and obtain the support both of their fol- 
lowers among the ruling orders, and their dependants among 
the plebeians, that they may be enabled to engross the whole 



CH. V.] EFFECT OF PARTY ON PRINCIPLES. 37 

power in administering public affairs. The possession of power 
with its attendants, patronage, honour, places, wealth, impunity 
for malversation, indemnity against charges of maladministra- 
tion, all the benefits that uncontrolled dominion can bestow 
upon those who are clothed with it — this is the object of the 
party combination, and to this every other consideration, among 
the rest all regard to public duty, all concern for the interests 
of the community, is sacrificed without hesitation, without scruple, 
and without remorse. There is generally a pretext of principle 
put forward to hide the nakedness of the association ; but no one 
is deceived by it, and the less, that the same principles are suc- 
cessively taken up and abandoned by all the factions successively 
as it suits their position and serves the purpose of the day : so 
that you shall see the party the most clamorous for certain mea- 
sures before its accession to office, the readiest to abandon, and 
even to oppose the same proposal immediately after that event ; 
and the same men who had the most loudly condemned a given 
course of policy, lay themselves meekly down by its promoters 
and join in patronizing it, as soon as their interest in the clamour 
has passed away. 

1. This is the first, and it is the worst of the evil effects which 
party produces. Principles are no longer held sacred in the 
estimation of mankind ; they become secondary and subordinate 
considerations ; they are no more the guides of men's conduct, 
but the false fabricated pretexts under which the real motive and 
object is cloaked ; they are the mere counters with which the 
profligate game of faction is played. The highest public duties 
are thus not merely violated, but brought into open and unblush- 
ing contempt. A low tone of political morality becomes the pre- 
vailing sentiment of the governing classes in the state. Stern 
principle is scorned ; rigid virtue is a laughing-stock ; and men 
in the humblest stations see those who should be their patterns 
set them an example of the most scandalous profligacy. Add to 
this the disgusting hypocrisy which men practise in their loud 
assertion of opinions which they care nothing about ; their solemn 
declaration of doctrines in which they have no faith; their 
earnest expression of feelings no deeper than their mouths ; 
their inflated avowal of devotion to principles wholly foreign to 
their nature and habits. All this makes up a picture which the 
people must be debauched by beholding so continually unveiled 
before their eyes. 



38 OF PARTY. [CH. V. 

2. The alienation of the people's affections and confidence is 
another result of the same combinations. The people see those 
who have assumed the entire management of their affairs wholly 
regardless of their interest, only bent upon keeping power in 
their hands, and affecting to make the public good the guide of 
their conduct, when they only set up this as a hollow pretext to 
conceal their real object. A distrust of all public men is the in- 
evitable result ; and this is as much excited in the partisans them- 
selves, who take up the cause of the rival party chiefs, as in the 
portion of the community which stands neuter, and witnesses the 
factious conflict. The Italian commonwealths were so divided into 
factions, that hardly any man or woman could be said to stand 
aloof from them ; all were either Bianchi or Neri, Uberti or Buon- 
delmonti, Cerchi or Donati. But we can have no doubt that 
this extinguished all kind of confidence in their rulers, and ac- 
cordingly it undermined all regard — not perhaps for the state, 
because the selfish and factious hatred of some other neighbour- 
ing state kept a kind of false patriotism alive — but certainly all 
regard for the constitution of their own country. The universal 
consequence was, that the liberties of all those commonwealths 
were subverted, and the supreme power became, sooner or later, 
vested in some native or foreign usurper. 

3. Akin to this is the fatal tendency to corrupt public and even 
private morals of the party union, as removing both the great 
incentive to virtue and the most powerful barrier against vice. 
Public praise and public blame are no longer distributed accord- 
ing to men's deserts. Whatever a man connected with party 
does well, he is quite sure to be undervalued, perhaps contemned, 
possibly assailed, by one-half the community ; and let him act 
ever so ill, he is secure of defence at least, if not of commenda- 
tion, from the others. The tribunal of public opinion becomes 
corrupt ; it no longer deserves the name of a tribunal. Who- 
ever is cited to its bar knows that half the judges are for him, 
and half against him, and no sentence, or nothing that may fairly 
be called a sentence, can be pronounced. Well might Mr. Hume 
remark, a hundred years ago, that " it is no wonder if faction be 
so productive of vices of all kinds ; for besides that it inflames 
all the passions, it tends much to remove those great restraints, 
honour and shame, when men find that no iniquity can lose 
them the applause of their own party, and no innocence screens 
them against the calumnies of the opposite." — (Hist., cap. lxix.) 



CH. V.] ENCOURAGEMENT OF SORDID MOTIVES. 39 

4. But though this seems sufficient, it is far from being all the 
mischief done by faction. Even in those who form party com- 
binations with purer views, and for the promotion of worthy and 
patriotic objects, it inevitably works a corruption of the deepest 
root and most extensive contagion. The nature of the associa- 
tion, the bond which keeps it together, has this unfailing con- 
sequence, — the tie is and ever must be a combination to obtain 
power for the associates. It is true they always state, and in 
some cases really believe, that they desire power in order to 
carry their principles into effect. Thus the Guelphs in any 
given Italian commonwealth may have desired power in order 
to resist the Emperor; the Ghibellines, in order to resist 
the See of Rome. The Whigs in the last century among our- 
selves desired it, in order to keep out the Pretender ; and the 
Tories, in order to protect the church and the monarchy from 
republican encroachments. But admitting these to have been 
the real motives of the parties, their mode of action, the means 
which they all proposed to themselves for giving effect to their 
several opinions, however conscientiously entertained, were one 
and the same — the possession of power, vesting that power in the 
hands of their chiefs, and giving to the followers a rateable pro- 
portion of the gifts which the government patronage enabled 
them to bestow. Thus, too, in the very extreme case of party, 
that of the United States of America : it is very possible that the 
Federalists may sincerely believe their principles the most whole- 
some for guiding the government of the Union, and the Demo- 
crats may as honestly consider theirs the true means of preserv- 
ing the great Republic. This is quite possible ; but what is quite 
certain is, that the primary object with each party is the election 
of the President, and the result of its victory is the removal of 
above 3000 placemen, from the chief magistrate at "Washington 
down to the postmaster in every village, to make way for succes- 
sors from its own body. The same excess of party violence may 
not take place in this country, where the same personal interest 
is not felt in the conflict, because so universal a change is not the 
result of a change of ministry. But we approach nearly to it ; 
and there pervades the whole community a combination of direct 
individual interest with the profession of political principles : so 
that while the nature of the game universally played induces 
very many to espouse the cause by affecting the opinions which 
belong to its supporters (and of the universal tendency of this we 



40 OF PARTY. [CH. V. 

have already spoken), the manner in which the game is and must 
of necessity be played creates the other, and perhaps more per- 
nicious evil, of which we are now speaking, by allying insepara- 
bly the possession of opinions, and the exertions made to give 
them effect, with the direct interest of the individual, and thus 
corrupting even men who begin by conscientiously holding those 
opinions, and honestly labouring for their establishment. 

For observe what inevitably ensues. The party principle 
and the personal interest for a time coincide ; but the moment 
is sure to come when they no longer agree, and either principle 
or power must be sacrificed. The change is sometimes made 
suddenly, openly, with audacious effrontery ; more frequently it 
is effected with greater caution and less boldness, and with 
every species of falsehood and hypocrisy. But at all times the 
union of personal interest with political principle, the fact (the 
fact quite inseparable from party operations) that the same acts 
which tend to promote party objects also tend, in the very same 
degree, to further individual interests, produces, and must in- 
evitably produce, the most reckless disregard of all but party 
ties and party duties, and must sap the very foundations of 
private as well as public morals. This is the necessary conse- 
quence of the union, and this explains the conduct of men who, 
upon other matters, are not deficient in moral principle, but 
who cast all such ties away when party objects are concerned. 
The process of self-deception is plain. The partisan covers 
over the iniquity of his conduct with the guise of principle and 
patriotism, pursues his personal gratification as if he were per- 
forming only a public duty, and not only affects to be guided 
by the purest of motives, but oftentimes blinds himself into a 
belief that he has no other incentive to a course of conduct the 
most sordid, or the most malignant. His experience of party 
movements must be exceedingly limited who cannot at once 
point to numberless instances of men, in all the other transac- 
tions of life tolerably honest and pure, who have gratified the 
most selfish propensities of our nature, or given vent to its 
most spiteful feelings, while they covered over the naturally 
hideous aspect of their intrigues or their rancour with the 
party varnish of a zeal for the good cause, and a vehement hos- 
tility to its enemies. 

It is in two ways that this injury is done to men's morals by 
the party tie. A regard for truth is abandoned, and kindly, cha- 



CH. V.] ENCOURAGEMENT OF FALSEHOOD. 41 

ritable, even ordinarily candid feelings are blunted, nay extir- 
pated. 

(1.) The basis of all morals is a sacred and even delicate 
regard for truth, a sentiment of proud disdain at the bare 
thought of being humbled to a falsehood, a feeling of disgust at 
all intentional violation of that paramount duty. But how many 
men are there who will scruple little to exaggerate or extenuate 
facts, nay, to suppress the truth they know, and even forge 
what they are well aware is false coin, so as they can make the 
concealment available to the defence of their party, or give the 
fiction currency to that party's gain ! Look to the perpetual 
misstatements of the party press in England, somewhat worse 
in America, in France not quite so bad as in either of the 
English countries, yet occasionally rivalling both. The un- 
blushing falsehoods propagated, the unretracted misstatements 
persisted in after exposure* for the support of their party, 
through these channels of public information, and which might 
be rendered the channels of popular instruction, made the 
first minister, the leader of the popular party, declare in par- 
liament, no longer ago than the year 1839, that he thought 
it questionable (i if the people of England would bear much 

* This is the very worst of the offences committed by the periodical press. If the 
public will have daily newspapers — that is, works published with such haste as to 
render accuracy of statement and of argument impracticable — they must lay their 
account with errors of every kind, among others with the grossest misstatements being 
even innocently promulgated. No one can be unfair enough to blame very severely 
the errors flowing only from such a source ; they are the unavoidable consequences of 
the hard necessity under which the ephemeral work is prepared and published. But 
if the authors refuse to retract, still more if they persist in propagating the error after 
it has been exposed, the defence wholly fails, and the statement which was a mistake 
becomes a wilful falsehood. Nay, the unretracted error becomes a falsehood by re- 
lation backwards, if not contradicted when exposed. Now it is quite notorious that 
newspapers generally speaking refuse to admit such errors, nay, often persist in 
repeating them, for fear of injuring their credit for accuracy, and so damaging their 
sale. This shameful iniquity, like many others, never could be perpetrated by indi- 
viduals known and accessible to the public indignation in their own persons. Men 
acting, that is, writing for publication, in the dark, whose individuality is uncertain, 
who may be one or may be more in number, who are not answerable in their own per- 
sons for any falsehood however gross, or any slander however foul — this anonymous 
tyrant, free from all control, and not even exposed to the risks which the most des- 
potic of known tyrants cannot always escape — is licensed to do such things as we are 
here, in common with all honest and rational men, holding up to public abhorrence; 
and it must be added, that the freedom with which this licence has been used during the 
last twenty years has effectually destroyed the influence of the press, by degrading its 
character and by rousing a general feeling of indignation and scorn against its scau- 
dalous abuses. 



42 OF PARTY. [CH. V. 

longer the falsehoods of the press, its not saying one word of 
truth, its perversion of every fact and of every reason." The 
statement may be somewhat exaggerated in its detail, as 
speeches are wont to be which men deliver under momentary 
excitement; but the foundation of the charge is wholly irre- 
movable. It is no light evil in any community that one part of 
it are trained by party to trick and deception, while another are 
drawn into unreflecting dupery, — that the feelings of public 
men are rendered callous to public opinion by seeing its oracles 
so often devoid of all truth and justice, — and that the dictates of 
right and wrong are confounded by observing how the best of 
party men, themselves perhaps incapable of such baseness, are 
yet willing enough to share in the benefits which their followers 
thus render to their cause. 

(2.) Next to the encouragement of falsehood the gratification 
of the malignant feelings is the worst point of the party com- 
pact. Indeed this is of even a more extended influence than 
the former mischief, because there are many who must be re- 
moved from all direct interest in the success of a faction, or of 
a factious operation, and who nevertheless are prone to gratify 
the spiteful propensities of their nature. This guides most 
partisans more or less, and converts society into a multitude of 
beings actuated towards each other rather with the spirit of 
fiends than of men. They never would feel such unworthy 
sentiments, assuredly they never would give them vent, but for 
the party spirit that moves their souls, and makes them pretend, 
nay, often makes them really think, that they are only further- 
ing an important principle when they are vomiting forth the 
venom of " envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness " 
against their adversaries. The eloquent invective of the great 
Italian poet, on the effects of faction in the Italian cities of his day, 
is familiar to most readers ; and the pleasing contrast, which he 
paints with his wonted vigour and concision, of Soritello rushing 
to the embrace of the great Mantuan bard on simply hearing 
that he came from the same town with himself.* The war of the 

* Ahi serva Italia, di dolore ostello 
Nave senza nocchier' in gran tempesta 
Non donna di provincia, ma bordello. 

Ah ! Italy," of crimes thou common inn, 
Bark without steersman in the tempest gale, 
No village frail one, gentle yet though frail, 
Strumpet, thy guilt 's less hateful than thy din ! 



CH. V.] EFFECTS ON INFERIOR PARTISANS. 43 

Italian factions was carried on by arms and not by slander ; the 
party spleen found its vent in proscription, banishment, confis- 
cations, executions, tortures, massacres. But the evil plant was 
the same, it shot its roots into the same soil — the bad passions 
of the human heart ; it was fostered by the same devices, it was 
sheltered from the breath of public indignation by the same 
self-deception, confounding selfishness with duty ; its growth 
was encouraged and its shoots propagated by the same delu- 
sion which stifled the warnings of conscience, reconciled the 
mind to its own degradation, and thus counteracted the naturally 
implanted principles of its decay. 

The two effects of party, falsehood and malice, to which we 
have been adverting, have this in common, that their contagion 
is not confined to the higher natures which chiefs may be rea- 
sonably supposed to possess— they extend to the humblest of 
their followers. In military operations the tricks which are in- 
volved in a stratagem little affect the men under the command 
of those who devise and order it ; they are generally unaware of 
the part which they are called upon to execute, and have no 
share in the deception which is practised. Even the cruelties of 
which they are the blind instruments affect their moral character 
far less than if they unbidden performed their part in the bloody 
fray. But the falsehood of party warfare, and, still more, its 
malignity, is actively partaken of by all, down to the lowest 
retainer. Nor can there be a stronger illustration of this search- 
ing nature of the contagion than the well-known fact, that the 
humbler retainers are the most unscrupulous and most rancorous 
members of every faction. You have only to compare the vio- 
lence of a country club or newspaper, their daring contempt of 
all truth, and even probability in their fictions, with the analo- 
gous proceedings of the factions in the capital, to be convinced 
how entirely the party taint permeates the mass, and how active 
the contagion is to gangrene the remotest extremities of the 
body — as the meaner parts of the natural frame furthest removed 
from the sources of sensation and of circulation are ever the most 
ready prey to mortification. 

(3.) The less obvious evils of party have now been enumerated 
and examined. Those which are most open to ordinary observa- 
tion need not detain us so long ; but they are not the less strik- 
ing for being the more obvious. It is no little evil that any 
community should be so circumstanced as necessarily to be 



44 OF PARTY. [CH. V. 

deprived of the effective services of half its citizens, whether for 
council in difficulties, or for defence against foreign aggression. 
Yet thus paralysed are states in which parties are equally 
balanced. Nevertheless, there is much exaggeration in the view 
which represents the party opposed to the ruling power as 
always wholly excluded from all voice in the government. That 
party exercises some and a sensible influence wherever the 
business of the state is conducted in a senate or deliberative 
council, open to both parties. The opposition prevents some 
bad measures from being carried ; prevents more from ever being 
proposed ; alters and amends some ; forces others upon a reluc- 
tant administration. So that the course pursued by the supreme 
power is in such states in a direction given by the combination 
of the two forces; the diagonal, and not either side of the 
parallelogram, as we explained in the second chapter. Never- 
theless, though not excluded from all voice, the opposition 
often occasions alterations, and interposes obstacles without re- 
gard to the public good. The objections are taken not on 
their own merits, not because the measures propounded by 
the government are really open to objection, but merely be- 
cause those measures are propounded by the government. Many 
good measures are thus defeated ; many changes are effected in 
those carried, changes detrimental to the public interests. Some- 
times peace has been precipitated, as in the treaty of Utrecht, 
when the interests of the country required a perseverance in the 
war that had cost so much, and proceeded so successfully. But 
it was a Whig war, under a "Whig captain, and therefore the 
press and the party ran it down, with its conquering general, in 
order that the Tories might gain a triumph over their adver- 
saries. What cared they if this could only be won by giving 
France a triumph over England? So the most profligate oppo- 
sition that ever minister encountered drove Walpole into a war 
with Spain which his good sense disapproved, and which the 
party chiefs afterwards distinctly confessed to Mr. Burke that 
they excited solely with the view of displacing their political 
adversary. Among the crimes of party in modern times this 
assuredly stands the blackest. The peace of twenty years was 
broken, and Europe was involved in the countless miseries of 
warfare, without the shadow of a reason either in policy or in 
justice, solely to gratify the lust of power raging in a few families 
and their adherents, lords of the English Crown and the English 



CH. V.] ENCOURAGEMENT OF TREASON. 45 

Parliament. The factions in the Italian Republics can alone 
furnish a parallel to this, the most disgraceful passage in our 
party history. 

It is indeed a serious evil to any community that there should 
always exist within its bounds a powerful body of men on whom 
the enemies of the state, foreign or domestic, may, generally 
speaking, reckon for countenance and support. They never 
cease to pretend that they are far, very far, from wishing to im- 
pede the public service. In some instances of urgent danger 
hovering over the country, they find it so far necessary to court 
the public favour, and disarm the general indignation, as to 
withhold their opposition, or even to lend a faint or perfunctory 
support to the measures of their adversaries. In other instances, 
where their resistance would be hopeless, they are unwilling to 
incur the odium for nothing. But it very rarely indeed happens 
that in any posture, however critical, of public affairs, the party 
in opposition refrains from exercising its power if it can reckon 
upon defeating the plans of the government. In the modern 
Italian Republics, as well as in those of ancient Greece, the 
faction opposed to the ruling party never hesitated to join the 
public enemy, and to serve against their own country. No man 
was ever abhorred or despised, or even distrusted, for such trea- 
son. Indeed no man was expected to do otherwise if the motive 
existed for such a proceeding, and the occasion favoured its 
adoption. In modern times the motions of the government are 
impeded, and the interests of the enemy are furthered, by as sure 
though not so shameless a breach of public duty and violation of 
the allegiance which all states have a right to demand from all 
their subjects. That certain benefits are by many ascribed to 
party is well known to all who have read Burke and Fox ; and 
it is impossible to deny that it may be expedient, and even neces- 
sary, in certain emergencies of public affairs, for men who appre- 
hend the same peril from a policy pursued by the government 
of their country, to form a combination in order to resist the 
measures adopted or threatened, and to waive minor differences 
of opinion in order to act in concert and with effect, preferring, 
as Mr. Fox says, the giving up something to a friend rather 
than surrender everything to an enemy — yielding themselves 
to the force of the bond described by Mr. Burke as unit- 
ing wise and good men in all ages — that arising from an 
identity of sentiment upon the sum of affairs. This forms the 



46 OF PARTY. [CH. V. 

true description of the party bond, where it is justifiable, and 
where it is formed upon public principles. But it presents no 
defence of a constant and perpetual existence of factious com- 
binations ; of dividing the whole community into two or more 
classes, habitually opposed to each other ; of marshalling the 
people as well as the leading statesmen into bands, the members 
of which agree in everything with one another, but most of all 
in both approving whatever their chiefs propose, and in resisting 
whatever proceeds from the other faction. Occasional party 
unions for a precise definite object, or for accomplishing some 
desirable end, beneficial to the state, for frustrating some attempt 
injurious to the state, diifer more widely from what is called 
party than the life of the habitual sot differs from that of the 
sober man who tastes the fruit of the vine to recreate his ex- 
hausted strength, or counteract a dangerous disease. 

Some there are, indeed, who push their defence of party a 
great deal further, and who hold it right that at all times there 
should be a party united in opposing the existing government. 
Their argument is founded on the advantage of the people hav- 
ing some combined and disciplined force to resist the body 
which is ever of necessity combined and disciplined on the side 
of power, by the pay and the rank which the possessors of power 
distribute. These reasoners further contend that this arrange- 
ment secures a thorough investigation of all measures propounded 
by the government, and establishes a jealous vigilance of the 
whole of the government's conduct. There may be some little 
truth in this statement ; but surely no contrivance can be more 
clumsy than one which would secure a correct working of the 
machine by creating obstacles that may at any moment suspend 
its movements ; and no check can be more costly than one 
which must occasion a perpetual loss of power, a loss, too, 
always great in proportion to the force required to be exerted ; 
that is in proportion to the necessity of union and the danger of 
dissension. Only conceive a person's astonishment who should 
for the first time be informed that, in order to prevent an erro- 
neous policy from becoming the guide of a nation's councils, 
one-half her statesmen, and nearly one-half her people, were 
continually and strenuously employed in working against the 
other half engaged in the public service ! " What are all these 
able, and experienced, and active men about ?" (would be his 
exclamation). "Their whole lives are spent in political con- 



CH. V.] DEFENCE OF PAKTY. 47 

tention, and are as much devoted to public affairs as those of 
the ruling party themselves. With what views do they volun- 
teer their toil, and in what direction are their efforts bent ?" 
To this there can be but one answer given, and it would cer- 
tainly astound the unpractised inquirer — " The only inspiration 
of these men is patriotism- — their sole object the good of their 
country ; the course they take to pursue this end is opposing 
every one measure of the government — working against the 
whole policy of the state." It is not to be doubted that if the 
credulity of the inquirer made him trust the truth of this infor- 
mation as to the motives of the party, his sagacity would at 
least incline him to suggest that the end in view might be 
attained by somewhat more safe and more natural means. 

But although we have pointed out the great evils of party and 
its constant liability to abuse, it must not be supposed that every 
one who enlists himself under party banners is therefore a per- 
son devoid of wisdom, far less of integrity. Men who really 
wish well to their country, and who have no desire so near their 
hearts as the furtherance of principles to which they are con- 
scientiously and deliberately attached, will often find themselves 
under the necessity of acting with others professing the same 
opinions as themselves, because they see little or no prospect 
of giving effect to those opinions if they stand and act alone 
in the State. The preceding inquiry tends to make us jealous 
and distrustful of party unions, and of the motives of all who 
form them; but it ought not to close our ears to all that 
may be urged in their defence. The best proof which they 
who thus combine can give of their motives being pure is 
their patriotic conduct upon great questions; the sure proof 
of their course being unprincipled is their holding a different 
conduct on the same questions when in power and when in 
opposition ; above all, their dislike to see their own policy 
adopted by their adversaries. This is a test of their sincerity 
which the people ought ever to apply. 



48 [ch. vi. 



CHAPTER VI. 

VICES AND VIRTUES OF THE ARISTOCRATIC POLITY.* 



Defects of Aristocracy — No responsible Rulers — No influence of Public Opinion — 
Comparison with other Governments — Interests in conflict with public duty — 
Illustrations from Roman Constitution ; Modern Aristocracies ; English and French 
Constitutions — Legislation influenced by Aristocratic interests — Similar evils in 
Democracy — Evils of Hereditary Privileges — Tendency to make bad Rulers — Com- 
parison of Aristocracy and Democracy — Corruption of Morals — Virtue of French 
Republicans — Galling yoke of Aristocracy — Merits of Aristocracy ; firmness of pur- 
pose — Resistance to change — House of Lords — Contrast of Democracy — Republican 
attempts to resist the Natural Aristocracy — Aristocracies pacific — Exceptions, 
Venice and Rome — Encouragement of Genius — Comparison with Democracy and 
Monarchy — Spirit of personal honour — Contrast of Democracy — F. Paul's opinion 
— Aristocratic body aids the civil Magistrate — Error committed in our Colonies. 

The vices of aristocratic government are inseparable from its 
nature, capable only of some mitigation, wholly incapable of 
entire counteraction, affecting other governments in which the 
aristocratic principle exists though mixed with the monarchical 
or the democratical, and affecting these more or less according as 
the aristocratical principle enters more or less largely into their 
respective systems. We are now to examine the vices, and 
afterwards to consider the redeeming virtues of the aristocratic 
polity. 

] . The first and fundamental defect of this government is that 
supreme power is vested in a body of individuals wholly irre- 
sponsible. That the supreme power is vested in one body with- 
out any control from others is doubtless a great defect ; but it 
is only a defect which every pure form of government has, every 
government which is not mixed ; it is the very essence of the 
pure as contradistinguished from the mixed forms of govern- 
ment. But the lodging of supreme power in persons not indi- 
vidually responsible is the vice of all popular government, and 
of an aristocracy as much as a democracy — indeed much more ; 
because no democracy can exist without either the occasional or 
the periodical exercise of a controlling power by the body of the 
people. If those to whom the supreme power is confided are 

* Some of these, especially the evils of party, have been already examined. But 
party is not so peculiar to aristocratic government as the incidents here treated of. 



CH. VI.] NO RESPONSIBILITY IN AN ARISTOCRACY. 49 

not bound at certain intervals to come before the people, either 
for a confirmation of their acts or for a renewal of their trust, 
the government is no longer democratic, but aristocratic, or oli- 
garchial. While the democratic rulers exercise the powers of 
their trust, they are like the nobles in an aristocracy, screened 
from individual blame or attack by belonging to a large body, 
all of whom are implicated in the acts of the state. The main 
difference, and a most important one, is that they must account 
to the people, either when their acts come to be confirmed, or 
when their term of office expires; whereas the nobles in an 
aristocracy never can be called to any account. 

It thus happens that these irresponsible persons have neither 
the institutional check to their conduct, nor the natural check, 
neither rendering any account nor suffering any penalty for 
malversation, nor yet watched and prevented by the force of 
public opinion. He who is only the member of a council con- 
sisting of five or six hundred, or even fifty or sixty persons, has 
the blame of misconduct, and the responsibility for failure, so 
much divided with his colleagues, that he cares little for the 
rateable share of it that falls upon himself. What member of the 
Venetian Great Council cared for the imprecations of the people ? 
Who regarded the horror generally excited by such atrocious 
acts as the judicial murder of Carmagnola against every rule of 
justice, or the cruel and unending persecution of Foscari ? * 
No single ruler, no council of eight or nine members under an 
absolute monarchy, would have dared to perpetrate such wicked- 
ness, especially when barbarous cruelty was complicated with 
base, and revolting, and despicable fraud. — So, what Roman 
senator felt scared at the thoughts of the popular odium which 
the decrees of the senate raised against it in the Marian and 
Syllan contests ? — What member of our oWn House of Lords 
takes very sorely to heart all that at various times is flung out 
of scorn, or ridicule, or hatred, against hereditary lawgivers, 
in order to assail that illustrious senate ? Nor is it only that any 
given person may be in the minority who had no hand in doing 
the act reprobated. Even those who were its supporters, nay, 
its promoters, hide themselves in the number who concurred, 
and among them escape from all serious censure. 

* These will be fully treated of when we come to examine the Venetian consti- 
tution. 

VOL. II. E 



50 VICES AND VIRTUES OF ARISTOCRATIC POLITY. [CH. VI. 

We have seen how the party union divides and even destroys all 
individual responsibility. Just so does the association of all the 
nobles forming the aristocracy, and thus governing the country. 
Each keeps the other in countenance, and all screen themselves 
under the name of the order. We have seen (Chap. V.) how all 
the members of a party do things for its benefit which none of 
them would venture to do for his own advantage. Just so do 
all the nobles join in doing things for the benefit of their order, 
the ruling body, which each would be scared from attempting 
on his own account by the dread of public censure or of per- 
sonal consequences. " It is all for the interest of the party," 
say the members of a faction. — " It is all for the interest of our 
order," say the nobles. The prince is but too much disposed 
to look only among princes for his public, and to regard their 
praise or their blame as all he has to consider. But he is far 
less confident in the fellow feeling of the small circle he lives in, 
and which he calls the world, than the aristocracy, because they are 
a numerous body, and each of their number can well look to the 
class as the public, the people, the world, none other having 
any voice, from the nature of the constitution, in state affairs. 
It is the constant and invariable disposition of all men in resolv- 
ing upon the line of conduct which they shall pursue, so far as 
they shape it by public opinion, to cast their eyes rather upon 
their own class than the world at large. Judges and advocates 
look to the bar ; " The opinion of Westminster Hall " is a well- 
understood expression among our own sages of the law ; it is 
almost to them synonymous with the opinion of mankind. If 
our statesmen do not confine their regards to the chambers of 
parliament, it is because they are subject to the direct interposi- 
tion of the people out of doors. Were there no House of Com- 
mons, and were the whole powers of government vested in the 
peers, each patrician would look to that body alone, and shape 
his conduct in accordance with its views. The case supposed 
would be a pure aristocracy ; and this is the first and fundamental 
vice of that scheme of polity. The supreme power is vested in 
the hands of men who form a body numerous enough to be to 
themselves as the whole world, and those men never look 
beyond it. The tendency of the constitution is to place them 
wholly above the influence of public opinion, which restrains 
even tyrants in their course. In modern times, it is true, this 



CH. VI.] NO FEAR OF PERSONAL DANGER. 51 

irresponsibility never can be complete, because the natural 
aristocracy interferes with it. The respect clue to talents, learn- 
ing, wealth, even virtue, obtains for those who belong not to the 
privileged class a certain weight in society ; and their opinion 
will be in some degree regarded by the members of the ruling 
body. But such a control must always be exceedingly slight 
and uncertain, compared with its effects upon the very few men, 
or the single man, who in a monarchy wields the supreme power 
of the state. 

2. The want of individual responsibility in an aristocracy does 
not stop here. As the nobles, the rulers of the state, are uncon- 
trolled by public opinion, they are also removed above the 
check which acts, and alone acts, on the prince in absolute mo- 
narchies ; they have little or no fear of personal violence. 
Their numbers place them in a condition to resist any ordinary 
tumults ; and the risk of assassination, which even sultans and 
czars run, is very little thought of by individuals who form an 
indestructible body. Were there a powerful leader to whom 
the public indignation might point, he would be exposed to this 
peril ; but there can be no such chief in the ordinary times of an 
aristocratic government, all the efforts of the governing body 
being directed to prevent any such influence from being ac- 
quired as directly tending to subvert the constitution. Hence 
the people can only conspire, or rise against the whole order, 
and this risk is little heeded by individuals, or by the body at 
large. At the same time, as a general rising of their subjects, 
excluded from all participation in the administration of affairs, 
might be the result of great oppression, the nobles of Venice, 
the most lasting of all aristocracies, took care to govern with a 
light and kindly hand, and reserved the principal exertions of 
arbitrary power, as we shall hereafter see, for the factions, con- 
spiracies, and ambitious views which might arise among the 
members of their own order. 

3. It is the worst of all the vices of an aristocracy that the 
interests of the ruling body are of necessity distinct from those 
of the community at large, and consequently their duties as 
governors are in perpetual opposition to their interests, and 
therefore to their wishes as individuals and as members of the 
government. Somewhat of the same vice no doubt belongs to a 
monarchy, and is corrected by the other bodies who share with 

e 2 



52 VICES AND VIRTUES OF ARISTOCRATIC POLITY. [CH. VI. 

the sovereign in a mixed monarchy. But there is this great 
difference in an aristocracy, that the conflicting interests in a 
prince are confined to himself, his own amassing of wealth, his 
own indulgence of personal caprice, his own partiality to his 
family and adherents ; whereas in an aristocracy there are hun- 
dreds of families, all of whom with their dependants are singled 
out as objects of exclusive favour, and clothed with peculiar 
privileges, which must necessarily be enjoyed at the expense of 
the whole community. We have only to consider the legislation 
of Rome in the early or aristocratic times of the Republic to 
satisfy ourselves how unremittingly and how shamefully the pa- 
trician body will exercise the supreme power which resides in it 
for its own exclusive benefit, and in contempt of the people's 
interests. The public land was almost wholly monopolised by 
the governing class. Some small portion having originally been 
bestowed on the plebeians, the acquisitions obtained by con- 
quests which their toil and blood had made were retained in 
the hands of the state, but enjoyed entirely by the patricians as 
tenants at a nominal rent, and tenants who could transfer and 
mortgage their possessory titles at pleasure. The people too 
were prevented from exercising any but the meaner kinds only 
of trades, besides cultivating their pittance of the soil ; while the 
lucrative kinds of traffic, and that of the sea, were reserved for the 
nobles. Then the capital which they were thus enabled to amass 
was lent at heavy interest to the poor plebeians, and the rigour 
of the law against debtors placed them under the most strict 
and cruel control of the patricians. Lastly, the military force of 
the state was supplied entirely by the plebeians, while for some 
ages the places of rank in the army, raised by a strict conscrip- 
tion, were reserved for the upper classes. All this is inde- 
pendent of the laws which secured the exclusive powers of 
government and enjoyment of offices to the nobility. We shall 
hereafter see the like fruits of patrician dominion in the Spartan 
legislature, and in that of the Italian aristocracies ; but no in- 
stance is so striking as that which the Roman history affords. 

It is the same in a more limited degree with several governments 
which give a preponderance to the aristocracy, and the mischief 
bears always a pretty exact proportion to that preponderance. The 
Swiss republics and the Polish and Hungarian constitutions will 
furnish us with illustrations of this proposition ; but the history of 



CH. VI.] INTERESTED ARISTOCRATIC LEGISLATION. 53 

our own legislature in England is not barren of such examples ; 
and the almost entire extinction of aristocratic influence in France 
maybe reckoned a principal cause of the tendency which the legis- 
lature of that great, opulent, and flourishing country has in recent 
times exhibited towards popular arrangements. Not going back to 
feudal legislation, but reserving that for a separate consideration 
of the Feudal Aristocracy, we need only recur to the times after 
that feudal government had ceased, and only left behind it the 
influence of the aristocracy in the mixed monarchy, to find 
examples in abundance of its effects upon the course of legisla- 
tion. Beside the laws made, and those retained against all 
principles of sound policy, and against the most important in- 
terests of the community, in order to retain the preponderance 
of the patrician body, laws restraining the commerce in land, 
and restricting the popular voice in the legislature — we find im- 
portant advantages granted to landowners above the owners of 
all other property. There is no occasion to enumerate more 
than a very few of these. The right of voting for members of 
parliament has never been severed from the possession of land, 
except in the two cases of the freemen in boroughs and the three 
universities. A man may possess a million of money in the 
funds, or acquired by commerce, and he has no voice in choosing 
his representatives, though the owner of an acre or two of land 
has his vote, and may have it in every county in which he owns 
an acre or two. While the law of settlement continued in its 
original rigour, any pauper might, though not actually charge- 
able, be conveyed from the place of his residence to that of his 
birth ; but if he owned the corner of a freehold anywhere, he 
might there abide and defy the unparalleled cruelty of that law. 
While the tax falls heavy upon succession to personal estate, 
the produce of a man's genius and toil for a whole life of hard 
fare, and hard work, and pinching economy, endured by his 
family or by himself, and at the moment of their succession, 
when it may be the most wanted, this hard-earned but well- 
gotten treasure is condemned to pay large tribute, while the 
broad acres that have descended through a long line of lazy 
ancestors wholly escape the hand of the tax-gatherer. The laws 
affecting the rate of interest and the commerce in grain may no 
doubt be defended, the one upon the score of a tender regard 
for the interests of poor debtors, and the other on the ground of 



54 VICES AND VIRTUES OF ARISTOCRATIC POLITY. [CH. VI. 

securing a steady supply of food to the people ; but we cannot' 
shut our eyes to the fact, that these objects are accomplished, 
through benefits in the first instance conferred, or supposed 
to be conferred, upon the landed aristocracy, whose incum- 
brances are somewhat diminished, and whose rents are materially 
increased by the prohibitory system ; and we may further be 
assured that their persuasion of its being for their benefit has 
always worked powerfully in making them so zealous to up- 
hold it. 

As regards the administration of public affairs, the interests 
of the aristocracy as a body are always sure to be consulted, 
and not those of the people. But individuals are not likely to 
obtain the gratification of their selfish desires at the public ex- 
pense — the rest of the order are sure to have their jealousy 
aroused by any such attempts. If however one party obtains 
the decided mastery, there will be nothing to prevent its fla- 
grantly sacrificing the interests of the community to those of its 
own adherents. The only check upon such gross malversation 
is to be found in the party combinations of their adversaries, 
and this benefit of the party principle, together with the price 
paid for it, we have already examined at length. Generally 
speaking, we may lay it down as certain, that the gross malver- 
sation by which individual interests are predominant over those 
of the community at large will be found more easily affected, 
and consequently carried to the greater excess, by the ruling 
party of a democratic, than by the predominant faction of an 
aristocratic republic. There can hardly be conceived under any 
form of polity a more absolutely tyrannical rule than that of the 
dominant body in a democracy when it has, as in order to rule 
for any length of time it must have, the full support of the great 
mass of the people. A refuge from this intolerable tyranny is 
only to be found in a balance of conflicting parties, which renders 
the community a scene of unceasing factious broils, hardly con- 
sistent with the existence of a regular government, and wholly 
incompatible with a tranquil and orderly condition of civil 
society. 

4. The principal, certainly the most glaring defect of a mo- 
narchy is, that the hereditary succession, which is an essential 
part of the system, deprives the community of all security for 
those qualities being found in its ruler which are most essential 



CH. VI.] TENDENCY TO GIVE BAD RULERS. 55 

to the public good. The chances of birth expose the state to 
perpetual risk of either a wicked, or an imprudent, or an imbe- 
cile ruler becoming intrusted with the sum of affairs. So an 
hereditary aristocracy exposes the country to a like risk of per- 
verse or incapable persons being intrusted with supreme power. 
The aristocratic form, then, has this vice, in common with the 
monarchical, but has not the redeeming quality of avoiding, by 
hereditary succession, the turmoil and the shocks to public 
tranquillity which arise from a conflict for power. On the con- 
trary, we have seen that the factious tendency is more predomi- 
nant in this than in any other constitution. It must nevertheless 
be admitted that the risk of many incapable or wicked rulers 
being found in the body of the nobles is far less considerable 
than the risk of a wicked or incapable ruler becoming the sove- 
reign in a monarchy. In one respect the two forms of govern- 
ment approach to a closer resemblance. The education of the 
rulers in both is such as peculiarly to unfit them for worthily 
exercising the high functions of their station. The training of 
patricians, next to that of princes, is peculiarly adapted to spoil 
them. They are born to power and preeminence, and they 
know that, do what they will, they must ever continue to retain 
it. They see no superiors ; their only intercourse is with 
rivals, or associates, or adherents, and other inferiors. They 
are pampered by the gifts of fortune in various other shapes. 
Their industry is confined to the occupations which give a play 
to the bad passions, and do not maintain a healthy frame of 
mind. Intrigue, violence, malignity, revenge are engendered 
in the wealthier members of the body and the chiefs of parties. 
Insolence towards the people, with subserviency to their 
wealthier brethren, are engendered in the needy individuals 
of a body which extends all its legal rights and privileges to 
its present members — too proud to work, not too proud to beg, 
mean enough to be the instruments of other men's misdeeds, 
base enough to add their own. There can be no kind of com- 
parison between the education of rulers in a democratic, or a 
mixed constitution and an aristocracy ; there can be no kind of 
comparison between the tendency of republican and of aristo- 
cratic institutions, and their sinister effects on the characters of 
men engaged in administering their powers. The democratic 
regimen is, in all respects, incomparably more wholesome to the 



56 VICES AND VIRTUES OF ARISTOCRATIC POLITY. [CH. VI. 

character, and more useful in forming virtuous and capable men 
— men whom it is safe and beneficial for a community to trust. 

5. The tendency of an aristocracy is further to promote 
general dissoluteness of manners, self-indulgence, and extrava- 
gance, while that of a democratic government manifestly inclines 
towards the severer virtues of temperance, self-denial, frugality. 
Rapacity, or any care for amassing wealth, is little known in a 
pure republic : it confers no distinction until the time arrives 
when it can give influence and power, and then it becomes a 
subject of general and perilous suspicion. But individual 
wealth is congenial to the aristocratic constitution. When the 
Committee of Public Safety governed France for fifteen months, 
and almost disposed of the riches of Europe as well as of France, 
these decemvirs only allowed themselves ten francs (about nine 
shillings) a-day for their whole expenses. Each month there 
was issued to the Ten a rouleau of three hundred francs (about 
twelve pounds) for their whole expenses; and when Robes- 
piere, St. Just, and Couthon were put to death on the 10th 
Thermidor, 1794, there were found in the possession of each no 
greater sum than the seven or eight pounds of their rouleau 
which remained unexpended. These men had for many months 
the uncontrolled management of millions, subject to no account 
whatever. 

6. The qualities which an aristocracy naturally engenders in 
the ruling class of insolence, selfishness, luxurious indulgence, 
are extremely calculated to render their yoke oppressive and 
galling. Accordingly there is no form of government more 
odious to the people. We naturally feel much less repugnance 
to the superiority of a sovereign, removed far above us, than to 
one more near our own level. The same sentiment which 
makes the rule of an upstart, lately on a footing with ourselves, 
intolerable, makes the rule of a nobility more hateful than that 
of a prince. It is more humbling to the natural pride and self- 
love of man. It is, besides, more vexatious, because it is less 
remote. The sovereign comes very little in contact and conflict 
with the body of the people ; the patricians are far more near, 
and their yoke is far more felt. The general tendency of aris- 
tocracy is not only to vex and harass, but to enslave men's 
minds. They become possessed with exaggerated notions of 
the importance of their fellow citizens in the upper classes; 



CH. VI.] OPPRESSIVE NATURE OF ARISTOCRACY. 57 

they bow to their authority as individuals, and not merely as 
members of the ruling body — transferring the allegiance which 
the order justly claims, as ruler, to the individuals of whom it is 
composed ; they also ape their manners, and affect their society. 
Hence an end to all independent, manly conduct. We are now 
speaking merely of a proper aristocracy, or one in which the 
supreme power is held by a body of nobles in their corporate 
capacity. If to this be added the possession of power by each 
or by many individuals of the privileged order, as in the Feudal 
System, the grievance is infinitely greater ; but of that we are to 
treat separately. The general unpopularity of an aristocracy 
underwent an exception in the remarkable instance of Venice. 
The ruling body in that celebrated republic, and the govern- 
ment generally, was exceedingly popular. In the Roman re- 
public the case was widely different. While the aristocracy 
continued unmixed nothing could be more odious to the people; 
and the constant struggles between the patricians and plebeians, 
frequently breaking out in open revolt, and all but civil war, 
still more frequently demanding a dictatorial magistracy to save 
them from it, were a sufficient proof that the constitution was 
unpopular, notwithstanding all the superstitious reverence of the 
Romans for established things, and all their devotion to the inte- 
rests of their country. 

We are now to see if the aristocratic constitution possesses 
any redeeming qualities, any virtues to be set in opposition to 
so many imperfections. It is by no means devoid of such merits, 
although they may not amount to anything like a complete equi- 
poise in the scale. 

1. There cannot be any doubt that the quality of firmness 
and steadiness of purpose belongs peculiarly to an aristocracy. 
The very vices which we have been considering lead naturally 
to this virtue, and it is a very great merit in any system of 
government. The members of the ruling body support each 
other — they disregard all sudden ebullitions of popular discon- 
tent — they will not partake of sudden panics — nor will they 
abandon plans of policy foreign or domestic on the first failure, 
as the multitude are ever prone to do. A system of administra- 
tion, a plan of finance, a measure of commercial or agricultural 
legislation, a project of criminal or other judicial administration 
— may seem to have failed, yet the patrician body will give it 



58 VICES AND VIRTUES OF ARISTOCRATIC POLITY. [CH. VI. 

a further trial. They adopted it on mature deliberation, and not 
on the spur of a passing occasion ; they will not be hastily 
driven from it. So if hostilities have been entered into, the 
iirst disaster disposes the multitude to wish for peace at all 
hazards — they who had, perhaps, driven the government to 
rush into the war. But if the aristocratic rulers have taken the 
field they will stand the hazard of repeated defeats, and only 
abandon the struggle when it has become desperate, or when an 
opportunity presents itself of making an advantageous peace. 
The admirable conduct of the Venetian government will afford 
us signal illustrations of this position. 

2. Akin to this merit is the slowness with which such a govern- 
ment is induced to adopt any great change. Indeed, resistance to 
change is peculiarly the characteristic of an aristocracy ; and the 
members of the ruling body and their adherents obtain at all pe- 
riods, in a greater or less degree, the power of stemming the revo- 
lutionary tide. This makes them equally resist improvements ; 
but it tends to steady and poise the political machine. The same 
quality of resisting change, and the same general firmness of pur- 
pose, belong to the aristocratic body in all mixed governments. 
In these it is productive of great benefit upon the whole, although 
it not unfrequently stands in the way of improvements, both con- 
stitutional, economical, and administrative. The history of our 
own House of Lords abounds in examples sufficiently striking of 
these truths. Whatever faults their enemies have imputed to 
the peers as a body, no one has been so unreflecting as to deny 
them the praise of firm, steadfast resolution, and of acting up to 
their resolves. But for their determination to resist measures 
which they deemed detrimental to the state, or to which they 
had objections from a regard for the interests of their own order, 
many measures of crude and hasty legislation would have passed 
in almost every parliament. If ever they have yielded it has 
been when the voice of the country at large was so unanimous, 
and when they were so divided among themselves, that a further 
resistance became attended with greater mischiefs than any which 
they could ascribe to the operation of the proposed changes. 
One, indeed the most remarkable, instance of this concession was 
their suffering the Reform Bill, in 1832, to pass, by seceding 
from the struggle. But the crown and the people were then 
united, and a creation of new peers, fatal to the aristocratic 



CH. VI.] RESISTANCE TO CHANGE. 59 

branch of the constitution, would have been the inevitable con- 
sequence of the bill being rejected. Of this its adversaries had 
timely notice, and they very wisely and patriotically suffered it 
to pass by their secession. They have since amply regained any 
influence which they then lost ; for, during the last ten years, 
they have had a preponderating share in the government of the 
country. 

The tendency of every government, as well as an aristocracy, 
is to resist change ; and self-preservation is, with forms of polity 
as with the human frame, the first law of nature. But it may be 
doubted whether the aristocratic form be not above all others 
jealous of change, quick to perceive a risk of it in every measure 
of improvement, and averse to whatever may by any possibility, 
how remote soever, arm any other class than the ruling order 
with the power of shaking or of sharing its dominion. It is quite 
clear that the democratic system has the least of this jealousy, 
and tends the most to promote plans of general improvement, 
because whatever improves the people's condition augments their 
influence and confirms their supremacy. All jealousy is in this 
system directed against individual ambition and the formation of 
a privileged class. Attempts are made to prevent the accumula- 
tion of wealth, as regards landed property. Those attempts are 
frequently successful, by restraining the power of devise ; and 
similar efforts are made, and always vainly made, to resist the 
force of the natural aristocracy in other particulars. The pride 
of ancestry, and the distinctions thence arising, can never be era- 
dicated : but the prevention of any substantial privileges from 
accruing to those who are well descended is not at all difficult ; 
and any such distinctions as would be conferred by an order of 
merit are carefully withheld even from the highest civil and 
military services. The project in America of a society or order 
of civil merit, the Cincinnati, soon after the revolutionary war had 
ended, and the independence was established, met with some 
support; but it was speedily frowned down by the general 
opinion of the democratic party, and no similar attempt has ever 
since been made. Bestowing all offices for a very short term is 
the constant expedient resorted to for obstructing plans of indi- 
vidual ambition ; and the tendency of war inevitably to raise up 
a body of powerful men, frequently a single person of predomi- 
nant popularity and influence, has, in America, combined with 



GO VICES AND VIRTUES OF ARISTOCRATIC POLITY. [CH. VI. 

the other happy circumstances of its position, discouraged all 
military spirit, and tended to preserve the public tranquillity. 
To such precautions as these the republican jealousy of change 
is generally confined, while free scope is given to all improve- 
ments, and encouragement afforded without any obstruction 
whatever to all the exertions by which individuals can either 
better their own condition or extend the prosperity of the com- 
munity. This is one of the greatest merits of democratic govern- 
ment ; and it stands in a very marked contrast to that extreme 
apprehension of all change which pervades both absolute 
monarchies, and still more aristocracies, making the rulers 
habitually apprehensive of every movement, however slight, and 
consequently of almost every improvement that can be projected 
— haunting them with incessant alarms, and causing them to 
resist all the advances which the people can make, not merely 
for the progress itself at any given moment, but for fear of its 
leading to other changes unseen, or only seen through the mag- 
nifying power of their jealous fancy. We might have set down 
this as among the worst vices of the aristocratic system, but that 
it naturally connects itself with that conservative spirit and power 
of resistance which in any given constitution must be deemed a 
merit ; it is the excess and the abuse of the conservative prin- 
ciple. 

3. It is not to be denied that an aristocratic government will 
generally be found to be a pacific one. This great virtue, cover- 
ing as it does many transgressions, it owes partly to its dislike of 
change, partly to its being ill adapted for military movements, 
but chiefly to its jealousy of individual eminence, likely to be 
raised upon the ground of military success, and to the want of 
any gratification of individual ambition in the progress of con- 
quest. When the Venetian Government addicted itself to con- 
quests, it was obliged to adopt the plan of intrusting its armies 
and navies only to foreign mercenaries, in order to escape the 
dangers of usurpation and change of government. The Roman 
aristocracy is a more remarkable exception to the rule ; but the 
popular party, the weight long acquired by the plebeians, had a 
great share in forming this warlike propensity. Sparta was at 
all times averse to war, and at all times proved inefficient as a 
military power. 

4. We may undoubtedly set down as a merit of aristocratic 



CH. VI.] ENCOURAGEMENT OF GENIUS POINT OF HONOUR. 61 

government that it tends to bring forward genius and encourage 
attainments in various branches of human enterprise — not merely- 
political talents, but those connected with the arts and with 
letters. The tendency of a democratic republic is to let talents 
be brought into action by the stimulus which it gives to all men, 
and the opportunity which it affords to all classes, of rising 
to eminence equally. The aristocratic government throws in- 
superable obstacles in the way of political, and many in the way 
of judicial and of military capacity. But it encourages all genius 
in the arts and in letters. The democratic constitution en- 
courages talents also in those departments, but the aristocratic 
fosters genius of a higher order by the more refined and exalted 
taste which it produces and diffuses. The Italian aristocracies 
afforded the most celebrated examples of this merit, and the 
influence remains manifest to our day in the imperishable works 
of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In this merit the 
aristocratic materially excels the monarchical constitution. 

5. Akin to this is the excitement and preservation of the spirit 
or principle of personal honour. No government so manifestly 
excels in fostering this high sentiment as the aristocratic ; and 
an aristocracy, whether the sole ruler or bearing its share of 
rule in a mixed monarchy, is remarkable for its beneficial in- 
fluence in this important particular. The manner in which it 
thus acts is obvious. Men who belong to a limited and privi- 
leged body are under the constant and jealous superintendence 
of all their fellows, strict in preserving pure the honour of the 
whole class, and resolved that no one baseness shall be suffered 
to tarnish it. They feel much less repugnance to crimes, how- 
ever hurtful to the community, which imply no personal degra- 
dation, and feel no repugnance at all to crimes of fraud and 
perfidy as well as of cruelty committed by the whole order for 
its own interests. But they will suffer none of their class to 
incur degradation whereby the body may suffer without its 
interests being at all furthered. In a democracy no such senti- 
ments have any necessary place, nor have they in an absolute 
monarchy uncombined with aristocratic institutions. In the for- 
mer, stern virtue is held in high esteem, and any breach of the 
law, or disregard of moral obligation, is regarded with aversion. 
But the delicate sense of personal honour is lightly valued ; and 
a coarseness of manners and want of all refinement accompanies 



62 VICES AND VIRTUES OF ARISTOCRATIC POLITY. [CH. VI. 

a more rigid conformity to the laws and more strict regard to 
moral duties. The sacrifice of all considerations in a pure 
aristocracy to the honour of the ruling order is exemplified by 
what Father Paul lays down as a clear duty in his ' Opinione 
per il perpetuo Dominio di Venezia' " If," says he, " a noble 
injure a plebeian, justify him by all possible means; but should 
that be found quite impossible, punish him more in appearance 
than in reality. If a plebeian insult a noble, punish him with 
the greatest severity, that the commonalty may know how peril- 
ous it is to insult a noble." 

6. It is certain that the existence of an aristocratic body in any 
state, whether it be mixed with monarchy or with democracy, 
greatly tends to promote order, and to facilitate the administra- 
tion of affairs, by aiding the magistrate in maintaining subordi- 
nation. The manner in which a gradation of ranks produces 
this important effect is obvious ; equally obvious are the evils 
which necessarily arise from the want of such a controlling in- 
fluence — an influence ever superseding the more harsh appeal 
to the direct force of the executive power. We shall find abun- 
dant proofs of this when we come to examine the American and 
other democracies. At present we may only remark, that a very 
great error has been committed in our remaining colonies, those 
of North America especially, in not introducing into their system 
an aristocratic body. The plan of Lord Grenville in 1791 (for 
his it was) contained the groundwork of such an addition ; but 
it has never been built upon. 



ch. vn.] 63 



CHAPTER VII. 

OF THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY. 



Individual influence in Aristocracies — Partial delegation of supreme power — Feudal 
and Civic Nobility in Italy — Polish Aristocracy — Operation of Feudal Aristocracy 
on Government — Illustration of Feudal Aristocracy from English History — Monkish 
Historians — William of Malmsbury — William of Newberry — Matthew Paris — Roger 
Hoveden — Henry of Huntingdon. 

We have hitherto treated of the aristocratic government, in 
which a select body of hereditary nobles exercise the supreme 
power, to the exclusion of all others, and in which each member 
of that body, possessing the same privileges with his fellows, 
only has by law the portion of power that falls to his share as 
one of the ruling order. But no such scheme of polity can exist 
for any considerable time without these individuals acquiring 
personal weight and influence, not merely with their colleagues, 
but over the subject- classes ; and this will vary in different indi- 
viduals according to their wealth, their descent from eminent per- 
sons, the services they have rendered, the capacity they possess, 
in short, according to the distribution of the natural aristocracy, 
which has already been treated of at large. The power of an 
aristocratic government therefore must always consist, not merely 
of the supreme or corporate power vested in the ruling body 
and exercised by its majority, but also of the influence and 
authority possessed by its individual members in common with 
all other eminent members of the community, though greater in 
them, as belonging to the ruling body. 

It may, however, well happen that the institutions of the coun- 
try vest direct influence in the individual members of the patrician 
body, and that they thus possess individually an authority and per- 
sonal weight beyond that which the natural aristocracy would give 
them, and beyond that which the individuals of the subject- classes 
derive from equal wealth, descent, talents, or services. Not only 



64 OF THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY. [CH. VII. 

may they be protected in their persons from legal process to which 
others are amenable, as for debt, subjected to different jurisdic- 
tion for offences, endowed with titles of honour, distinguished 
by precedence in rank while not exercising their political func- 
tions, exclusively eligible to fill important offices — all of which 
prerogatives are almost inseparable from their position as mem- 
bers of the governing body; but they may have attached to 
their possessions, or even to their persons, rights of a valuable 
nature, and tending to bestow much individual authority. They 
may have the exclusive power of being followed by trains of 
retainers ; exemptions or other privileges may be attached to 
those retainers ; their property may be exempt from burdens to 
which others are subject; they may have direct authority over 
their retainers, and over all who dwell upon their property ; 
they may have judicial, and they may have military power over 
their dependants; in a word, the supreme power of the state 
may to a certain extent be delegated to them, subordinate to the 
ruling body indeed, but supreme as regards their inferiors. We 
have already shown at great length how the scheme of polity, 
which grew up all over Western Europe after the dissolution 
of the Roman Empire by the inroads of the northern nations, 
created a class of privileged persons, whose individual power 
was connected with the possession of land, and who exercised 
over those to whom portions of their land were given upon cer- 
tain conditions, an authority much greater and more constantly 
effectual than any which the sovereign could exercise over them- 
selves. The sovereign power in such a state may either be held 
by an individual, as in the feudal monarchies, or by a body, as 
in the feudal aristocracies of the middle ages. But in either 
case the barons, the noble landowners, or holders of noble fiefs, 
form a peculiar body, whose powers are not exercised by the 
whole as a corporation, but by each chief in his own district. 

According to the principles of the Feudal System all land was 
held in grant either immediately or mediately from the prince. 
He was the over-lord of all, and no one could hold any real 
property except as rendering him service and owing him allegi- 
ance in respect of it. All sub-tenants held of their immediate 
lords in the same manner. Therefore, when an aristocratic 
government sprung up, or a democratic, in the Italian states, it 
was among the nobles who held of the Emperor, the common 



CH. VII.] FEUDAL AND CIVIC ARISTOCRACIES. 65 

lord paramount, or among the citizens of the towns who had 
grown into importance and acquired privileges, or it was among 
the vassals of the great feudatories — the princes subordinate to 
the Emperor ; but in all cases of feudal nobility there was an 
over-lord, and no nobles held their lands of any corporation, or 
of any aristocratic body, even where those corporate or aristo- 
cratic bodies had thrown off the Imperial yoke and obtained the 
supreme power in the commonwealth. The feudal nobles often 
inclined towards their liege lord in the contest between him and 
the towns ; but they generally endeavoured to maintain a sub- 
stantive power in their own body, and to resist the encroach- 
ments of the civic nobility. They in every case failed sooner or 
later, and were at length obliged to enrol themselves in the civic 
companies, in order to protect themselves from the encroach- 
ments of the popular body, or of the city aristocracy, and in or- 
der to obtain their share of the political power set up in defiance 
of the Emperor. But whether they united in this manner with 
the citizens, or retained their separate condition, they exercised 
great individual influence, from their possessions and the num- 
bers of their adherents. In all the Italian towns, as we shall 
hereafter find, they had their houses fortified like castles, and 
they exerted their individual influence by levying bodies of 
armed adherents, with whom they waged war against one ano- 
ther, to the great disturbance of the public peace, and often to 
the subversion of the established government. The part of Italy 
where the feudal nobility exercised most power was in the states 
afterwards possessed by Venice on the mainland. The nature 
of the ground contributed much to produce this effect. The 
hilly or strong country extended in those parts to no great dis- 
tance from the towns, so that the fastnesses of the barons were 
near the scene of action, and afforded them strongholds from 
whence they could sally at the head of their followers, and to 
which they could always retreat. Under shelter of those castles 
their retainers could hold out against the burgher militia. 

Poland affords another and a remarkable example of feudal 
aristocracy — in some respects the most remarkable of any. The 
government was not a pure aristocracy, because the crown, 
though elective, was conferred for life, and had some consider- 
able share of authority down to the first partition in 1772, after 
which it became nearly as nominal as that of the Doge at Venice ; 

VOL. II. F 



66 OF THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY. [CTI. VII. 

but at all former periods the effectual powers of legislation and 
the most important executive functions were possessed by the 
nobles, while those nobles excluded the people at large from all 
si i a re whatever in the government, and each noble possessed 
more or less of feudal authority and privileges, in proportion to 
the extent of his demesnes and the number of his vassals. 

The tendency of the individual power possessed by the nobles 
of any country to support the aristocratic government established 
in it is by no means certain, and is evidently not unmixed 
with a tendency of the opposite kind. If, indeed, the force of 
the law be complete, and no individual can either violate its 
provisions or act against the interests and security of the whole 
body, whatever influence each member has over his retainers 
must contribute to the strength of the government. But this 
supposes not only a complete efficacy in the law to prevent all 
sedition and conspiracy — it supposes also an entire absence of 
party and its combinations, and this we have found to be 
peculiarly difficult to conceive in an aristocratic constitution. 
Now as soon as such combinations exist it is manifest that the 
greatest mischiefs both to the peace of society and to the stability 
of the government must arise from the power of individual 
nobles, and little less than anarchy can be expected to prevail in a 
community so constituted. The whole history of the Italian com- 
monwealths, and much of the Polish history, is one continued 
scene of the faction, confusion, and civil war arising from the 
power of individual nobles. In Italy their fortified houses, or 
castles, were the theatres of regular sieges. Their bands of fol- 
lowers, acknowledging no law but the will of their chief, carried 
on war against each other as if they were the subjects of separate 
and independent princes. The change of ministry, as it would 
be called in our more quiet days, was the elevation by force of 
one party to power, and the expulsion of their adversaries, 
generally attended with the razing to the ground of all their 
castles, and the massacre of such opponents as did not fly. But 
no country under the dominion of the feudal aristocracy could 
be said to possess a regular government, France and Germany 
were, under their monarchs, as much a prey to civil anarchy as 
Italy and Poland, except that the aristocratic or democratic 
power in the smaller commonwealths of the south had even less 
force than the power of the crown in the north to restrain and 



CH. VII.] ENGLAND UNDER THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY. 67 

control the turbulence of the barons. We have already examined 
at such length the nature and effects of the feudal scheme where 
it prevailed, that it is only necessary the reader should be re- 
ferred to those chapters of the First Part in which this important 
subject is discussed (Ghap. viii. ix. x.) But we shall here add 
an illustration of the state of government and society under the 
feudal aristocracy in the middle ages ; and though it is not taken 
from the history of the Italian or Polish republics, but from that 
of England, exactly the same state of things must have prevailed 
among them, only that their annalists have given us less minute 
information respecting its details. The subject is also curious, 
as illustrating our own early history, and showing, if any proof 
of that were wanting, the folly of those ignorant and unreflect- 
ing persons among ourselves who are fond of bidding us look to 
the more ancient periods of our government for the perfection of 
the English constitution. The period to which we shall now 
refer was immediately preceding the reign of King John, and 
the granting of the great Charter ; and that important act being 
on all hands admitted to have been merely declaratory, all the 
praises lavished on the original form of our polity must be 
understood as being applicable to the reign of King Stephen, of 
which we are now about to speak. 

The Monkish Histories certainly may be relied on for the 
general descriptions which they give of the state of the country, 
unless in those instances with which ecclesiastical controversies 
and the interests of the church are concerned ; and, above all, 
they may be trusted as not exaggerating in their accounts of 
enormities committed by prelates or other churchmen, as well as 
by lay barons. 

William of Malmesbury flourished in the worst of the times 
which he describes, about the middle of the twelfth century. 
His work is dedicated to Robert of Gloucester, son of Henry II. 
The following is his account of the year 1140 : — 

" The whole of this year was defaced by the horrors of civil 
war. Castles were everywhere fortified throughout the whole of 
England, each sheltering its own district, nay rather, to speak 
more correctly, laying it waste. The soldiery issuing forth from 
them carried off the sheep and cattle, not sparing even the 
churches or the cemeteries. The houses of the wretched 
peasantry were stripped of everything to their very straw thatch, 



08 OF THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY. [CH. VII. 

and the inhabitants bound and flung into prison. Many of them 
breathed their last in the tortures which were inflicted on them 
in order to force them to ransom themselves. Nor could even 
bishops and monks pass in safety from town to town. Numbers 
of Flemings and Bretons, accustomed to live by plunder, flocked 
to England to share the general booty." — (Will. Malm., 185.) 

" Such," says the author of Gesta Regis Stephani, 961, " such 
was the doleful aspect of our miseries, such the most dishonour- 
ing form of the sordid tragedy (qucestuosce tragedian inhonest- 
issimus modus) everywhere openly exhibited in England. Pre- 
lates themselves," he adds, " shameful to tell, not indeed all of 
them, but very many, or a great proportion of the whole (non 
tamen omnes, sed plurimi ex omnibus), armed and fully appointed, 
and mounted, did not scruple to join the haughty spoilers of the 
country, to partake of the plunder, and putting to the torture, or 
casting into dungeons, whatever soldiers they took, and imput- 
ing to their soldiery all the outrages of which they were them- 
selves the authors. And to say nothing of the others (for it 
would be indecent to blame all alike), the principal censure of 
such impious proceedings fell upon the Bishops of Winchester, 
Chester, and Lincoln, as more intent than the rest upon such 
evil courses." — (Lib. ii. p. 962.) 

The treatment which the crown met with from the barons is 
thus described by William of Malmesbury, speaking of the year 
1 1 38 : — " Their demands from the king had no end : some 
would ask lands, some castles ; in short, whatever they had a 
mind to, that they must have. If ever he delayed granting 
their requests, straightway they became incensed and fortified 
their castles against him, plundering his lands to an enormous 
amount. The king's profusion never could satisfy them ; the 
earls who had not already been endowed with crown lands rose 
against him ; they became more greedy in their demands, and 
he more lavish in his grants." — (Lib. i.) 

William of Newbury informs us that <( he, the least of the 
saints of Christ, was first born unto death in the first year of 
Stephen's reign, and again born unto life in the second year." 
To describe the anarchy which prevailed he cites the text — " In 
these days was no king in Israel, but every one did as seemed 
good in his eyes." Neither the king nor the Empress Maude 
had any real power. — " The animosities of the contending pro- 



CH. VII.] ENGLAND UNDER THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY. 69 

vincial nobles waxing hot, castles had arisen in every part of 
the country from the fury of the conflicting factions, and there 
were in England as many kings, or rather tyrants, as there were 
owners of castles — each having power of life and death, and of 
administering justice to their subjects like so many sovereigns." 
— (i Thus," he afterwards says, " by contending against each 
other with long-established mutual hatred, they so wasted with 
rapine and fire the fairest regions, that in a country once most 
fertile almost all power of growing grain was destroyed." — 
(Lib. i., cap. xxiii.) 

Matthew Paris lived a century later, but he gives the same 
account of those dreadful times ; the same picture of a wretched 
country, abandoned to the rule of local tyrants, the intolerable 
yoke of a feudal aristocracy ; but flourishing as our romance 
writers will always have it under the sway of chivalrous barons, 
the paternal rule of mighty chiefs who revelled in their halls, 
led forth gallant hosts to do deeds of arms, and while they 
ravaged the country or plundered their neighbouring lords, 
entertained minstrels to sing their deeds and magnify their 
name. 

" There was no shelter from violence even in the shades of 
night. Everything was wrapt in slaughter and fire. Shouts, 
and wailing, and shrieks of horror resounded on every side." 
These are the words of Matthew Paris (1139), and Eoger Hove- 
den uses the same language. 

At length a treaty was made between Stephen and the Duke 
of Normandy, afterwards Henry II., the principal article of 
which was applied to the extinction of this ancient pest. It was 
agreed that all the castles erected since the time of Henry I. 
should be pulled down. No one dared to propose any destruc- 
tion of the old, and, as it were, established strongholds of vio- 
lence, rapine, and anarchy. A hundred and twenty-six were 
within the scope of this stipulation. It is however to be observed 
that the treaty itself, as given in Kymer (Feed. i. 13), contains 
no such provision ; and Henry of Huntingdon says that " the 
brightness of the day was overcast in some degree by the meet- 
ing of the two princes at Dunstable, where they complained that 
some of these castles, erected for the worst of purposes, remained 
still entire, contrary to the treaty, owing, it was said, to the 
goodnature of Stephen sparing some of his barons." (398.) 



70 OF THE FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY. [cH. VII. 

William of Newbury relates how " castles were burnt after the 
treaty like wax melted in the fire, they having before served as 
retreats to wicked men and dens of robbers." When Henry II. 
came to the throne he took care to see the stipulation executed, 
destroying all the castles built since Henry the First's time, with 
only a very few exceptions. 

Such was the condition of England under the feudal aristo- 
cracy ; but, no doubt, rendered far more the prey of general 
anarchy by the evils at the same time afflicting the country of a 
disputed succession. The consequent weakness of the govern- 
ment, and the incentives to civil war, acted upon the materials 
of revolt and turbulence which the force individually possessed 
by the barons collected in every part of the kingdom ; and it 
may fairly be questioned whether in any country pretending 
to have a regular government, and removed by but a step 
from barbarism, there ever was seen in the world such a state 
of things as England presented during the sad period of which 
we have been surveying the annals, upon the testimony of con- 
temporary and unsuspected witnesses. 



CH. VIII.] 71 



CHAPTER VIII. 

MIXED ARISTOCRACIES. POLAND. 



Tendency of Aristocracy towards mixed Government — May be really pure when appa- 
rently mixed — Examples: Venice, Genoa, Lucca, San Marino — Polish Constitution 
— Ancient History — Origin of factious spirit — Extinction of all jealousy of Foreign 
influence — Patriotism of the Czartoriskys — Conduct of neighbouring Powers — The 
Partition — Nobles strictly an Aristocracy — Their Privileges — Palatines ; Castellans ; 
Starosts — Elective Crown — Foreign interference — Diet of Election — Royal Prero- 
gative — Change in 1773 — Senate — Its Constitution and functions — Chamber of 
Nuncios — Functions of the Diet — Absurdities in its Constitution — Prophylactic 
power and Vis Medicatrix in Governments — Mitigating devices in the Polish Con- 
stitution — Administration of Justice — Defect in the English similar to one in the 
Polish Government — Military System — Character and habits of the Nobles — Prince 
Czartorisky. 

We have already seen that an aristocracy may be easily com- 
bined so as to form part of some other constitution ; that its na- 
ture even lends itself to such changes and modifications as pro- 
duce a mixed government ; and that accordingly there have been 
very few instances of purely aristocratic constitutions lasting 
for any such length of time as monarchies are generally found to 
endure. Wherever the aristocratic principle enters into any 
form of government, it brings with it more or less of the conse- 
quences which we have seen follow from the establishment of 
that scheme of polity, more or less in proportion as the principle 
enters more or less largely into the system. This is manifest. 

But it is also clear that a government does not cease to be 
aristocratic, and may well be so described — it does not become, 
properly speaking, a mixed government — by the mere addition 
to the aristocratic body of some other power, too feeble to con- 
trol it or to share with it the supreme power. Thus the Vene- 
tian government, as we shall presently see, was most strictly 
speaking a pure aristocracy, though nominally at its head was 
placed a kind of mock chief, a mere shadow of royalty, in the 
person of the Doge. The like may be said of Genoa during the 
time that the aristocracy prevailed and excluded the popular in- 



72 MLXEl) ARISTOCRACIES POLAND. [CH. VIII- 

fluence. In Lucca and San Marino, the Gonfaloniere, though 
possessing more authority, could not be said to change the aris- 
tocratic or oligarchical frame of the constitution. Neither does 
the circumstance of the executive power, or rather a portion of 
it, being conferred by election, make any difference. If that 
power were substantial and real, if it effectually counteracted the 
aristocratic influence, then, although conferred by the nobles, if it 
were bestowed for life, it would make the government a mixed 
monarchy, and if conferred by the people it would be equally 
monarchical, though the right of election in both instances would 
tend to give the choosing body — the nobles in the one, and the 
people in the other—some additional weight in the balance of 
constitutional power. So the Doge or the Gonfaloniere being 
elective officers did not make them the less monarchical : it was 
their insignificant authority, their impotency to control the 
aristocracy, that made their weight as dust in the balance of the 
constitution. 

The two countries in the constitution of which the principle 
of aristocracy has entered most largely are Poland and Hun- 
gary . In both of these the government might be truly termed 
mixed, because the sovereign, elective in the one and hereditary 
in the other,* possessed considerable power, although the root of 
the monarchy, especially of the Polish monarchy, was planted in 
the patrician body. In both, too, there was a large addition to 
the influence of the crown from foreign influence : in Poland, 
from the unjust, unconstitutional, and illegal interference of 
foreign powers; in Hungary, from the crown being For ages 
worn by the Austrian monarch, and from the consequent pre- 
valence of all the disturbing forces which we have seen belong 
■to the imperfect federal system. — "We shall now examine these 
two constitutions, as affording full illustrations of the aristocratic 
principle, while we proceed to treat in detail of ancient and 
modern aristocracies. 

The kingdom, or the republic of Poland, for it has gone by 
both names, was, before its partition had been effected by one 
of the most detestable national crimes that human ambition ever 
committed, among the most extensive and important states of 
Europe. Its surface stretched over nearly 250,000 square miles ; 

* The crown was originally hereditary in Poland, and elective in Hungary. 



CH. VIII.] POLISH HISTORY. 73 

its population exceeded twenty millions ; * its productions, ve- 
getable and mineral, were rich and various ; its rivers gave easy 
vent to its produce, though it possessed little seacoast ; and its 
position in the centre of Europe gave it a natural influence over 
the neighbouring states. 

The feudal polity prevailed here as over the greater portion of 
Europe to the south of the Baltic Sea, although it was not reduced 
to so regular a system as in most of the other countries. The divi- 
sion of the land was more unequal ; but there were no great fiefs as 
in Erance and Italy. The sovereign had, as everywhere, in theory 
a very limited prerogative, in practice still less authority ; and 
the barons had extensive powers over their vassals, and an over- 
ruling influence in the government. As there were no great 
feudatories dividing the country into so many principalities, go- 
verning each in a kind of federacy under the common superior, 
there was no difference between the legal privileges and rights 
of the numerous barons or landowners. The more wealthy, 
those who possessed the largest estates, had, of course, most in- 
fluence ; but all were recognised as the ruling order, and, toge- 
ther with the sovereign, and much more than the sovereign, car- 
ried on the administration of affairs. 

The sovereign was nominally elective ; but as soon as one 
powerful family had obtained the crown, they had sufficient in- 
fluence to transmit it, by making the election fall upon some one 
of their number, on each successive vacancy. Thus the Jagel- 
lons, descended from Jagellon, Duke of Lithuania, uniting that 
duchy with Poland in 1385, on his marriage with Hedwige of 
Anjou, the Polish queen, continued to reign till 1572 ; and the 
Piast race, from which Hedwige had sprung, was on the Polish 
throne in the tenth century, and before the introduction of 
Christianity. The nobles chose one Piast after another for suc- 
cessive ages ; and it was not till the Jagellon dynasty, which had 
reigned for two centuries, became extinct, upon the death of 
Sigismund Augustus in 1572, that the elective system, the 
cause of all the evils which afterwards befell the country, be- 
came, after the succession of three Yasas, completely established 
in substance as well as in name. 

The first struggle, however, to which this wretched system 

* This includes Lithuania, the extent of which was 120,000 square miles, and the 
population nearly six millions. 






74 MIXED ARISTOCRACIES POLAND, [CH. VIII. 

gave rise, was productive of considerable benefit to the 
nation. The " Confederation of Poland," as it was ever after 
called and almost ever respected, decreed that all distinction of 
political privileges on account of religious differences should 
cease, and that every sect should enjoy the same civil rights. 
This great event happened in 1573; Henry of Valois was elected 
king, and soon after resigned the throne, when he became Henry 
III. of France on the death of Charles IX. The factious spirit 
which an aristocracy, governing with an elective king, engen- 
dered and spread over the whole community, soon took such en- 
tire possession of all men, that no animosity was felt towards any 
foreign enemy ; no jealousy was entertained of any foreign in- 
terference ; no precautions were taken against any foreign ag- 
gression. The two most formidable neighbours of the republic 
were certainly Austria and Muscovy. In 1586 the czar, Feodor 
Ivanovitch, was very near being elected ; and Maximilian of Aus- 
tria was actually chosen king. It is true he had a competitor, 
whom his own party also elected ; but it was another foreign prince 
and a powerful neighbour, though less formidable than the other 
two, Sigismund Vasa of Sweden. A civil war, combined with 
a foreign, ensued from this double choice : Maximilian was de- 
feated by John Zamoyski and taken prisoner ; and Sigismund, 
though he lost his hereditary kingdom of Sweden, reigned 
nearly half a century in Poland — ruining the country by his 
weakness, and oppressing it by his bigotry, which led him se- 
cretly to violate the Confederation, though he dared not openly 
to act against its salutary provisions. The spirit of faction joined 
with his misgovernment to make his reign a long anarchy ; but 
the wise government of his two sons, who were fortunately 
chosen after him, especially the second, John Cassimir, did much 
to restore the public prosperity. 

The great nobles, or magnates, had hitherto the chief share 
both in the government of the country and the election of the 
king. The lesser nobles could, by combining against them, 
dispose of the election, though they could never long retain a per - 
manent influence in the government from the inevitable effects 
of the natural aristocracy. In 1668 their combination obtained 
the election of Michael John Sobieski. At his decease the House 
of Saxony, through Russian influence, obtained the crown, which 
they held through the same support from 1690 to 1763. 



CH. VIII.] PATRIOTISM OF THE CZARTORISKYS. 75 

Now began the glorious efforts of the Czartoriskys, the most 
noble and virtuous of the great houses of Europe ; efforts which 
have been nobly persevered in ever since, and which have 
ended in the voluntary destruction of that self- devoted family of 
illustrious patriots. Endowed with such ample possessions that 
their quota to the levy in times of peril was not less than 20,000 
armed men ; descended from the Jagellons ; allied by marriage 
with all the other great families of the realm, and with many of 
the royal houses of Western Europe ; yet more revered for 
their virtues and their patriotism than respected for their power, 
they endeavoured to bring about those essential reforms in the 
constitution which the sad experience of past times had proved 
to be so eminently wanted. But Russia and her tools, the 
Saxon party, resisted all change ; and although she was during 
the Empress Elizabeth's reign most unexpectedly and most un- 
accountably gained over to the liberal interest, the Saxons now 
obtained the aid and countenance of France, which put herself 
at the head of that party called the republican, because they 
maintained the supreme power of the nobility and opposed all 
salutary reform, and among others the formation of a vigorous 
executive. Nevertheless the Russian influence joined to that 
of the patriots under the Czartoriskys succeeded in strengthen- 
ing the power of the crown, restricting that of the nobles, and 
above all placing bounds to the exercise of the veto, the great 
flaw in the system, and which made an impossibility, the unani- 
mous concurrence of the diet, an indispensable requisite to all 
legislative acts. Under the same influence Poniatowski was 
chosen king in 1764, on the decease of Augustus III. of Saxony ; 
and there appeared for a while the dawn of brighter days for 
Poland. Soon, however, the inherent vice of the system, the 
interference of foreign influence, again broke out, and Russia 
found that her preponderance was gone if the reforms lately 
effected were suffered to be maintained. In less than two years 
the veto was restored, the crown's power reduced to its former 
crippled state, and the formal guarantee of Russia interposed 
to the existing constitution — in other words, to the perpetuation 
of those abuses and that anarchy which rendered the whole 
administration dependent upon her own pleasure, and made the 
Russian Ambassador ruler of the country. 

The fruits of the vile tree thus again planted and thus nur- 



76 MIXED ARISTOCRACIES rOLAND. [CH. VIII. 

tured were soon gathered by the hands that had cherished it. 
In 1772 a portion of the country containing five millions of in- 
habitants was seized on, without the shadow of a pretext, by its 
three most powerful neighbours, Russia leading the way in this 
great pillage, and receiving the lion's share of the spoil. In 
1791 the progress of liberty and of free opinions, accelerated by 
the French revolution, gave birth to a vigorous effort in behalf 
of Polish reform. The constitutional diet, on the 3rd of May in 
that year, promulgated a new constitution, framed on the model 
of our own, and to the merits of which Mr. Burke himself bore 
a generous, though perhaps not a very willing, testimony. Had 
it not contained the two cardinal defects — first, of being some- 
what too much in advance of the age, finding the people with 
their aristocratic regimen unprepared for its provisions ; and next, 
of making no effectual provision for raising a sufficient national 
force — there is great reason to believe that, in the critical position 
of European affairs in which it was launched, it might have 
survived to bless the country with a regular and orderly go- 
vernment, and to secure its independence from foreign aggres- 
sion. But the spoiler was at hand: the partitioning powers 
suddenly took the field; they wasted the country and besieged 
the towns ; after massacres, of which there is no other example 
in the modern warfare of European nations, they overturned the 
new constitution, and, as the price of their interference, divided 
among themselves half of what their former crimes had left 
nominally independent. Two years later the final blow was 
struck, and, after a desperate struggle under the gallant Kos- 
ciuszko, they erased this ancient kingdom from the map of Europe. 

"We are now to view more nearly the structure of this bad 
•government ; the worst, without any exception, that has ever 
been established for any length of time in any part of the world 
— the one which most signally, most constantly, and most inevi- 
tably failed to bestow upon its subjects the benefit that all go- 
vernment is formed to dispense — internal tranquillity and secu- 
rity from foreign aggression. Whatever we have already seen 
of misfortune befalling the country, whatever we are yet to ob- 
serve of tumult and anarchy in the administration of its affairs, 
all proceeded directly from this fruitful source of public calamity. 

The chief power of the state, although not the supreme or 
the sole power, was lodged in the patrician body. Every noble 



CH. VIII.] BIGHTS OF THE NOBLES. 77 

had an equal voice in exercising the functions of the govern- 
ment, and he used it by voting for the election of representa- 
tives, called nuncios, that is, delegates or ambassadors to the 
chamber of nuncios in the diet, or supreme legislative assembly. 
The choice was made at provincial assemblies, or lesser diets, 
called dietines. The rights and condition of nobility could only 
be conferred by the united voice of the three states composing 
the diet, namely, the king, the senate, and the nuncios ; con- 
sequently the body was strictly an aristocracy (Chap. I. Part n.), 
all the family of each noble having its privileges by inheritance, 
and no person having the power of entering into the body with- 
out its own consent expressly given. The dietines decided all 
claims of nobility, on the production of the claimant's title or 
letters of nobility ; and the severest penalties were denounced 
against any one who should presume unauthorised to usurp 
the rank, or to prefer false or fictitious claims : he might even 
be put to death by any noble summarily and without trial. 
The rank was not lost by intermarriage with persons of an in- 
ferior class ; consequently the claimant had only to prove his 
noble male descent ; but three generations of descent must have 
elapsed before the privileges could be fully enjoyed, unless in 
extraordinary cases of public service. The noble thus descended 
and thus entitled was termed Scartabel (quasi Bellus ex Chart a) . 
The rights of nobility were forfeited by crimes and by following 
a degrading trade ; but menial service, even in the house of a 
foreigner, did not forfeit ; it only suspended the right of voting 
during the servitude. 

Beside the elective franchise, the Polish noble enjoyed other 
immunities of an extraordinary kind. He alone could hold 
landed property. He had a right to all mines and minerals, 
including salt mines, on his lands, commoners being excluded 
from such rights entirely. He exercised jurisdiction over his 
peasants or vassals, even to the extent of life and death. His 
house was an asylum, giving refuge from arrest to all male- 
factors and all debtors, though he became in some sort answer- 
able if he shielded any. His own person was sacred, and he 
could only be arrested upon a judicial conviction of a crime, 
or if taken in the act. No great office, hardly any other of 
importance under the crown, could be held but by a noble ; and 
these were of high pecuniary value as well as power and in- 



78 MIXED ARISTOCRACIES — POLAND. [CH. VIII. 

fluence. The chief were palatinates, castellanies, and starostics. 
The palatines were governors of provinces and chiefs of the 
nobles within their respective bounds, heading them when 
called out on great emergencies, in the pospolite, arriere-ban, 
or levy en masse, and also commanding them in war. The 
castellans, originally the lieutenants of the palatines, became 
afterwards invested with equal powers, only in smaller districts. 
The palatinates and castellanies were rather offices of honour 
and influence than of profit; but the starosties were exceed- 
ingly valuable in point of emolument. They were attached to 
the lands originally domains of the crown, and no one could 
hold a starosty without possessing some portion of this land. 
They were a species of government, and many of them had 
civil and criminal jurisdiction. The income amounted in some 
to as much as 25001. a-year. They were, like the palatinates 
and castellanies, conferred by the crown ; and without the royal 
assent did not go to the widow or heirs : but this assent was 
rarely withheld; so that they became almost hereditary, like 
the offices in the other feudal monarchies. There were in the 
whole kingdom, including the grand duchy of Lithuania, no 
less than 452 starosties. The crown had besides a vast number 
of villages, which were generally granted for life, with all their 
rents and emoluments. 

The king was elected by the whole body of the nobility, thus 
constituted and thus richly endowed. The primate, Archbishop 
of Gnesen, was viceroy or interrex during an interregnum after 
a sovereign's decease, abdication, or deposition ; and in case that 
see was vacant, the Bishop of Cuiavia. All the ordinary ad- 
ministration of justice was suspended, only extraordinary coun- 
sellors were appointed to dispose of criminals, and generals to 
guard the frontier ; but so feeble were the national forces, that 
foreign princes almost always marched their troops into the 
country as soon as an election approached. The foreign minis- 
ters were formally desired to quit the capital, that the choice 
might be the more free ; but they as regularly refused to go. 
Thus a Russian ambassador answered the requisition by ob- 
serving that he had been sent to reside in Warsaw, and not in 
the country. An Austrian envoy said on the like occasion, that, 
if he went, he was sure his master would order the Silesian 
regiments to escort him back. 



CH. VIII.] ELECTION OF KING. 79 

The Diet of Election began its discussions with a statement 
of grievances, called exorbitances or complaints of the infractions 
of the constitution during the late reign, and, after resolving to 
exact some new concession from the new king, they proceeded 
to choose him. The Deputies who were sent from the various 
dietaries, amounting in number to about 150 nuncios, and called 
Rota Equestris, occupied an enclosed space. They conducted the 
whole deliberations ; but they were liable to be changed during 
the process at the will of their constituents, who, as the last of 
all the absurdities in which this constitution abounded, attended 
in person, and partook fully in the vote elective of the crown, 
though not in the deliberations on grievances. The whole 
nobles marched upon Warsaw by various routes forth from their 
castles at the head of their retainers and dependants, all but the 
poorer class mounted, and all without any exception armed. As 
many as 130,000, frequently more, occasionally even 200,000, 
were thus assembled. Arriving at the scene of the operations, 
the elective operations, the great plain of Vola near the capital, 
they occupied the ground around the enclosure of the Nuncios, 
and there encamped, during the six weeks that the Election 
Diet lasted by law. During this period of interregnum the re- 
public was termed "most serene" and assuredly a title of 
honour less expressive of the fact never was invented or be- 
stowed by the overweening caprice of princes, prone to fancy 
that they could endue their favourites with the qualities which 
they named them by, than this appellation assumed by the aris- 
tocratic republic to describe its own state while exercising un- 
controlled power. 

The sovereign thus named, unless when the election was 
brought about by foreign armies or foreign gold, generally had 
to fight for his crown. Having in one or the other way secured 
the possession of it, his prerogatives were so far from being the 
shadow of monarchy, like those of the Italian doges, that they 
really gave great influence, and entitled the political philosopher 
very correctly to term the constitution a mixed aristocracy. He 
enjoyed a considerable revenue, above 60,000/. a-year for his 
personal expenses ; named to all the great offices, of which there 
were forty- eight, but ten, of the highest, having places in the 
senate as well as in the council of state ; appointed all military 
officers ; had the exclusive patronage of all the seventeen bishop- 



80 MIXED AKISTOCRACIES POLAND. [CH. VIII. 

rics and of all the greater livings ; gave away the vacant sta- 
rosties, and gave or refused the succession of deceased starosts 
to their families ; granted privileges to towns, so however that 
these interfered not with the rights of the nobles ; distributed 
orders of knighthood ; and bestowed titles of nobility on fo- 
reigners, who however obtained from thence no rights or pri- 
vileges.* He received foreign ministers, but in the presence of 
the council ; and though he could appoint ambassadors to repre- 
sent the republic, they could neither make alliances, nor treat 
of peace and war. It was among the many vices and absurd 
anomalies of this vile constitution that the generals and ministers 
named by the crown held their places irremovably, until they 
either consented to retire or were sentenced by the Diet. 
Finally, he had the nomination of the senate, of which body we 
are now to speak. But the senators, like the generals and mi- 
nisters, held their places independent of the crown. 

The number of the senate was 136, of whom seventeen were 
prelates. Beside these 136, the ten great officers of state 
had seats in the senate, and of course possessed more influence 
than any of the other members. The senators had constant 
access to the king's person, and four of them were required to 
be always near him. "Without their presence he could do no 
act of state ; and this contrivance to maintain a watch over the 
crown on the part of the aristocracy manifestly resembles what 
we shall find to have been practised at Genoa and at Venice 
with a similar view. No senator could quit the country without 
express leave of the Diet. 

The functions of the senate were to preserve peace and union 
among the various provinces or the palatinates and castellanies ; 
• and to assist at the diet, of which, in its legislative capacity, the 
senate formed an integral part. Its consent was required for 
the making of any law, and the taking of any resolution of the 
diet, as much as that of the king and the Chamber of Nuncios. 
The senate could only be convoked by the king, unless in the 

* We have made no mention in the text of the change which was effected in 1773, 
after the first partition, because we are here giving an account of the old constitution 
while Poland was entire. That change really reduced the regal authority almost to a 
shadow : it was the nomination by the Diet of councillors, without whose consent no 
act of the Crown could be performed. This was copied from the constitution of Ve- 
nice, as we shall presently see. 



CH. VIII.] THE DIET. 81 

event of any illegal proceedings taken by him, in which case the 
primate might call a meeting. If the primate refused in such 
an emergency, the nobles could assemble it. 

The nobles were represented in the Chamber of Nuncios, 
chosen as we have seen by the dietines of the provinces, all of 
which were to hold their meetings the same day, except two, 
Zata and Holitz, which met a week earlier. The number of 
nuncios was 168, provided the electors in each of the sixty-four 
districts were unanimous ; for unanimity was required in diet- 
ines as well as diets ; but Prussia Royal had a right to send 
100 representatives of its nobility. The same absurdity which 
prevailed at the election diet was also found to exist in the 
ordinary meetings of the nuncios ; for, under the name of arbi- 
ters, all the nobles claimed a right to attend the meetings of their 
representatives, and even to interpose their opposition and pro- 
test to the choice of the marshal or president of the chamber. 
This, however, was not peremptory,, but only led to inquiry. 

Every function of the government not performed by the king 
alone was performed by the Diet. They only could make 
laws, determine questions of peace, war, or alliance, levy taxes, 
raise troops, coin money, confer nobility, and naturalize fo- 
reigners. But in all their proceedings the grand and revolting 
anomaly was introduced, which has obtained the expressive and 
descriptive name of the Liberum Veto, only that this is not gene- 
rally understood in the full extent of its absurdity. Not only was 
absolute unanimity required to give any vote force and effect ; 
but if any one of the many parts or chapters of a law, or of any 
one law of the many discussed at a diet, was rejected, the 
whole legislation of that diet fell to the ground. It was neces- 
sary to adopt all or to reject all. Surely no human contrivance 
was ever devised so effectual to tie up the will and paralyse the 
judgment of any deliberative assembly. Add to this, that the 
duration of the diet was fixed by law — it must expire in six 
weeks, and even at the hour striking, whatever subject of consi- 
deration might then be before it. 

When any gross absurdity has for any reason found its way 
into the frame of a government, there seems to be called forth a 
protective or prophylactic power in the system, analogous to 
that by which the natural body throws off any noxious or any 
extraneous matter introduced into it ; and if mischief cannot be 

PART II. G 



82 MIXED ARISTOCRACIES POLAND. [CH. VIII. 

prevented, then is exerted another power like the vis medicatrix 
of the natural frame — a power of making some secondary- 
provision which may counteract the mischievous effects of the 
malconformation, and enable the machine to go on working, 
which otherwise must be stopped or destroyed. We shall find 
examples of this truth in the ancient as well as modern republics 
of the south; and Poland affords one as applicable to the 
grievous vices of its political system which we have just been 
describing. The king had the power of convoking extraordi- 
nary diets upon emergencies, but these could only last three 
weeks. However, when a diet had failed of coming to any 
useful decision, in consequence of the veto, a majority of the 
chambers might, with the assent of the crown, turn the diet 
into a Confederation. This usually took place on the emergency 
of some threatened invasion, or other public danger. If without 
the royal assent the confederation took place, it was called 
Rokosz. Sometimes even when the confederation was regular, 
being authorised by the crown, always in the case of a Rokosz, 
there were re- confederations or anti- confederations, which at 
once led to a civil war. The king had the power likewise of 
convoking a Senatus Concilium, or senate deliberating under his 
presidency ; but its decrees only had the force of law tempora- 
rily, and required to be confirmed by the diet. Another kind 
of confederation was the Zwyozck or Military Zwyozck, and 
this was another name for a military revolt. After every kind 
of confederation it was usual to hold a diet of pacification, in 
which the intention and the name alone were of value. 

The administration of justice was upon a footing nearly as 
singular and of a description quite as imperfect as any other 
branch of the Polish constitution. The king continued much 
later than in any other country of Europe to hold the judicial 
power in his own hands. Until late in the sixteenth century he 
was the sole judge of important cases, as well criminal as civil ; 
and he went round the kingdom to exercise this high office, 
with his numerous suite, all of whom were maintained at the 
public cost in each district that they visited. This labour, so 
alien to a modern prince's habits, made Henry III. say, " Faith, 
these Poles have only made a judge of me, and soon they will 
make an advocate ; v His successor, Stephen Battori, created 
regular courts, reserving to himself the greater causes only. In 



CH. VIII.] JUDICIAL AND MILITARY SYSTEMS. 83 

the reign of the succeeding princes the nobles and the clergy 
obtained the judicial power, and this weakened exceedingly the 
influence of the crown, without materially improving the ad- 
ministration of justice. The want of any provision for the pro- 
secution of offences was a serious imperfection, though not 
confined to Poland ; and the maxim became established, and as 
rooted as it was pernicious — " Nemine instigante, reus absolvitor." 
It is only by a variety of accidental circumstances concurring to 
counteract the evil in our own system, that a similar defect has 
not ended in paralysing the whole execution of our criminal 
law ; and the mischiefs that daily arise from it are very grievous, 
notwithstanding the partial remedy which these circumstances 
have applied. 

But the manner of appointing the Polish judges was as bad as 
possible. They who composed the higher tribunals were elected 
at the several dietines by the nobles, and at the chapters by the 
superior clergy. The places of these judges were lucrative, gave 
great influence, and were eagerly sought after by the nobles ; 
and their persons were sacred, so that the least injury or insult 
offered them was punished with death. They had cognizance 
of all crimes, treason and peculation excepted, subject to appeal. 
The diet was the court of review, and had original jurisdiction 
of treason and peculation. 

The military state of the country was not better than its civil. 
There was no army that could be relied on when wanted, any 
more than in the other feudal kingdoms, while the armed state 
of the nobles and their high privileges almost exempting them 
from the control of the law, made the country a prey to the 
worst form of anarchy, that of a military mob. The nobles did 
not serve in the infantry, however poor, excepting as officers ; 
and all the cavalry, men as well as officers, were nobles. Each 
had a right of bringing three servants to attend him, and 
these were all on a kind of equal footing with their masters. 
Every noble, private as well as officer, and how needy soever, 
was admitted to the general's table. The servants were called 
pacholiks : they were all armed, and all took part in the fight. 
The diet alone could call out the pospolite (or levy or arriere- 
ban), and, on its being summoned, all ordinary administration of 
justice ceased ; the king alone and the senate exercised judicial 
functions, and martial law was administered by military tribunals. 

g2 



84 MIXED ARISTOCRACIES — POLAND. [CH. VIII. 

Such was the structure of the Polish constitution : its basis a 
completely formed and firmly cemented aristocracy, but joined 
and badly adjusted to a kingly power ; and certainly it would not 
be possible to devise a system less fitted to secure any one of the 
objects of all government. Bad as it was, and ill as it worked 
in modern times, and after its principles were settled, in earlier 
ages it was still more tumultuous and* more mischievous, and 
unavoidably engendered a constant struggle between the nobles 
and the sovereign, to the utter and habitual neglect of the public 
interest. Thus it was not till the middle of the fifteenth cen- 
tury that the king's consent was required to the passing of any 
law, or that the senate was recognized as a body separate 
from the representatives or nuncios ; and when John Albrecht, 
an able and patriotic prince, at the beginning of the sixteenth 
century, after in vain attempting to curb the exorbitant power 
of the nobles, tried many schemes for the general benefit of the 
country, he was stoutly and successfully resisted in all his en- 
deavours, the aristocracy desiring only to thwart him, and caring 
nothing at all for the interests of the state, which he was desir- 
ous of advancing. In his reign began that constant disposition, 
much increased in the Saxon reigns, to seek foreign aid in 
their party conflicts, which formed the great stigma on the 
character of the Poles. No one was jealous of the Czar ; all 
fears were merged in the jealousy of the crown. 

The character and the habits of the ruling class were such as 
it might be expected that uncontrolled power thus distributed 
among individuals, as well as vested in the body, would form in 
each of its members. They were fierce, ignorant, haughty, 
overbearing. The natural talents of the Polanders are great ; 
no people have more : they combine the suppleness and quick- 
ness that distinguishes the Sclavonian race, with far more steadi- 
ness and perseverance than ordinarily accompanies these brilliant 
and attractive qualities ; and all the insolence of the nobles was 
covered over and concealed by a polish of manners almost pecu- 
liar to that people. The inequality, however, in the distribu- 
tion of wealth was extreme ; and although each noble, be his 
condition ever so mean in point of fortune, possessed the full 
privileges of his order, the wealthy landowner received as 
much homage from his poorer brethren as from the needy com- 
moners. The power and splendour in which the greater families 



CH. VIII.] PRINCE CZARTORISKY. 85 

lived was not to be matched by anything in more refined coun- 
tries. The Prince Czartorisky, beside maintaining a multitude 
of dependents and gentlemen in needy circumstances, had a 
suite of young nobles who, at his residence, his court, received 
their education, and became fitted to shine both in that brilliant 
circle and in the attractive society of Warsaw. The princess 
was daily seen at Poulawi to take her morning drive attended 
by twenty gallant cavaliers, rivalling each other in their de- 
voted obeisance, and all but fighting for the honour of handing 
her from the carriage when she alighted, or picking up her fan 
when it chanced to fall. The military force of his domains we 
have already mentioned. It is this lofty position, this brilliant lot, 
which that great patriot, the present representative of the family, 
has exchanged for poverty and exile — a lot, however, that he 
only prized, and now only regrets, as it afforded him the power 
of serving that country for which he has made so vast and so 
costly a sacrifice.* 

* The works upon Poland are numerous, and some of them possess great merit. 
There are several in German and in Latin. Of course those in Polish are to foreigners 
a sealed book. The Chev. D'Eon's Description de la Pologne, in vol. i. of his Loisirs, 
gives the best, and, generally speaking, the most correct account of the constitution. 
But no one should omit reading the admirable work of Rulhieres (IS Anarchie de la 
Pologne, in 4 vols.), one of the most brilliant and attractive histories that was ever 
written. Recourse has been had, in preparing this chapter, to original sources of po- 
litical information. 



86 [ch. ix. 



CHAPTER IX. 

MIXED ARISTOCRACIES — HUNGARY. 



Lombard Conquest — Magyars — Arpad Family — Feudal circumstances — Nobility — 
Cardinal and Non-Cardinal privileges — Magnates — Bulla Aurea— Titled Nobles — 
Diet — Representation; Proxies; Votes — Delegation — Diet's functions — Taxes — 
Cassa Domestica and Militaris — Count Szechinij — Local County Administration 

Congregationes Generales— Municipal Government Kozseg ; Candidatio — Village 

Government — Powers of the Crown — Sale of Titles — Peasantry — Urbarium of Maria 
Theresa — Lords' power; Robot — Lords' Courts ; reforms in these — New Urbarium ; 
Prince Metternich's reforms — Military System ; Insurrectionary Army — Frontier 
Provinces — Prejudices of Hungarians in favour of their Constitution — Conclusion of 
the subject. 

The Aristocracy of Hungary never was so firmly established, or 
endowed with privileges so extensive, as that of Poland ; and it 
is a question much agitated amongst political inquirers, whether 
or not the Feudal System ever existed in that country. The 
Lombards, in the year 526, overran the greater part of Hungary ; 
and in the ninth century, the Magyars, a people from Central 
Asia, obtained possession of it, dividing the lands among their 
chiefs, and reducing the former inhabitants to a state of slavery. 
The family of Arpad, their principal leader, held the chief autho- 
rity until its extinction in 1301. After the lapse of nearly four 
centuries Austria obtained a footing, and occasionally the supreme 
power ; but it was not till the latter part of the seventeenth cen- 
tury that she received the crown formally, and only since 1711 
that she has held it without dispute. 

• It seems, on the one hand, difficult to deny that the feudal 
scheme ever found a footing in Hungary ; and, on the other, to 
admit that it was fully established. The servile condition of 
the cultivators of the soil, the holding of all lands under the 
crown, the great power of the nobles, their exemption from 
tribute, the exclusive possession by them of free land, and the 
annexation of services to the qualified possession, or rather enjoy- 
ment, of landed rights by the peasant, as well as the jurisdiction 
exercised by the lord over the tenant to a considerable extent, 
all savour strongly of feudality. Indeed, the gifts which the 
former could exact from the latter on the marriage of his child, 



CH. IX.] NOBILITY. 87 

or his own capture in war, were entirely of a feudal aspect and 
origin ; while we must admit that the refinements of the system, 
and its complete symmetry, had no place among the Hungarians. 

The foundation of the whole system, both of the general govern- 
ment and of the local polity of the community, has at all times 
been the influence and the privileges of the Nobles — originally, 
as everywhere, a select few, but become, in process of time, a 
numerous body, and forming now a considerable portion of the 
whole inhabitants. They amounted to 350,000 a century ago, 
and may now be estimated at a million and a half, the whole 
population being not more than nine millions and a half. Of 
course, in this numerous body there are not many wealthy indi- 
viduals, and very many in the meanest circumstances : but all of 
them possess the same rights and exemptions by law ; all of 
them form an artificial aristocracy; and it is the natural aristo- 
cracy alone which apportions their relative influence, confining 
the administration of affairs, the real weight in the state, to such 
of the class as excel in wealth and other personal or accidental 
qualities and possessions. 

Their privileges are of two kinds, cardinal and non- cardinal. 
The most important of the latter are the being exempt from hav- 
ing troops quartered on them, and the right to sell upon their 
estates certain articles, of which the government has the mono- 
poly elsewhere, and as against all commoners. It is another of 
these non-cardinal privileges that the nobles alone can possess 
lands. — The cardinal privileges are more valuable and more 
numerous. The noble holds his land free from all direct taxes, 
all tithe, and all toll. The only service which he is bound to 
perform is the attendance upon the levy when the bann or insur- 
rection is called out on an invasion. His person is sacred ; he 
cannot be arrested until convicted, unless he is taken in the fact; 
his house, too, cannot be entered on any account by the officers 
of justice. All fiefs are male, excepting in the district of Arva, 
where the land goes also to females on the failure of males. In 
that event elsewhere the fief reverts to the crown. There was 
till very lately (1835), strictly speaking, no power of selling the 
land, but recourse was had in consequence to perpetual mort- 
gages ; and as these were redeemable on payment of the mort- 
gage-money and all improvements, a double price was generally 
stated in the contract, great claims for expenditure were made, 



88 MIXED ARISTOCRACIES — HUNGARY. [cH. IX. 

and endless litigation ensued. But still the titles to land pur- 
chased are very insecure, because all land originally granted by 
the crown is redeemable within thirty-two years ; and this right 
may, by a legal proceeding (the mere registering of the claim), 
be kept alive for ever. At twenty-four years of age the son can 
demand a provision ; and on the lord's death an equal division 
of the land is made, only reserving to the youngest the benefit 
of a house. — These customs remind the English reader of gavel- 
kind, once the common law of this country, though now confined 
to Kent ; and Borough-English, once the custom of all boroughs, 
though now only known in a very few places. Where the fief is 
male, one-fourth goes to females on failure of males when the 
crown takes the residue. It is another strange privilege of the 
nobles, that they owe no allegiance to the king before his coro- 
nation. 

Originally the Magnates, or higher nobles, oppressed the in- 
ferior, who, combining together, exacted from King Andrew and 
the higher nobles, in 1222, the great charter, called the Bulla 
aurea, seven years after King John was forced by his barons to 
grant our Magna Charta. The purport of this important concession 
was to communicate all the privileges of nobility to the whole 
order ; and it was plainly, like our own charter, only a declara- 
tion of existing and violated rights. It further declared, that 
every noble should be subject to the court of the Palatine, ex- 
cepting in capital cases and causes of forfeiture, which were 
reserved to the royal jurisdiction. The most remarkable article 
of the Bulla aurea contained, like our own great charter, a sti- 
pulation of resistance in case the other provisions should be vio- 
lated. This article has only been omitted since the year 1687, 
and that, as is expressed, not from any objection to its substance 
on the part of the crown, but only to avoid the misconstructions 
to which it had frequently given rise. The titled nobles are 
about two hundred families. — We are now to view the system 
of government which arises out of this aristocracy, and of which 
this aristocracy is the basis. 

The supreme power in the state, by the theory of the consti- 
tution, is the Diet or general assembly of the Orders ; but there 
is in practice a wide difference between the rights of the Hun- 
garian and those of the Polish Diet, and the crown has become 
the preponderating authority, although the diet still retains 



CH. IX.] THE DIET. 89 

considerable powers. It is composed of three great branches, 
the Prelates, the Magnates, and the Delegates of the inferior 
nobles and the free towns. The prelates are thirty-six in num- 
ber, of whom thirty-four are Catholics, and one a Greek bishop, 
the magnates and the higher clergy, those who have official 
right to be barons and counts, and the magnates by descent and 
tenure of land. There are six or seven hundred in all who have 
a title to sit in this chamber ; but, comparatively, few attend, 
sometimes no more than thirty or forty. The prelates and mag- 
nates form one chamber {Tabula). The lower chamber is 
composed of deputies chosen by the forty- six counties, that 
is, by the inferior and numerous nobility, a million and a 
half in number, and of whom about 120,000 are supposed 
actually to vote. The free towns also send deputies; each 
county sends two. But there is also a singular kind of deputies, 
who, however, have no right of voting — the proxies of mag- 
nates who do not choose to attend in their own chamber, and 
the proxies of the magnate widows, who of course cannot sit. 
These proxies resemble what we may recollect to have found in 
the Sicilian parliaments. (Part I. Chap, xvn.) The deputies of 
towns are entirely under the influence of the crown ; for as the 
whole expenditure of the revenue is, except for sums less than six 
pounds, under the absolute control of the sovereign, if any town 
were to choose a refractory deputy, the sums necessary for re- 
pairs and improvements would be left unprovided. This entire 
subserviency of the town-deputies is the excuse for the nobles 
having long since taken away their right of voting : they are as 
mere ciphers as the proxies, and have not more privilege than 
that of cheering the speakers, and themselves debating, if they 
please, which however they very rarely do. A single vote was 
once offered to all the town-deputies collectively ; but it was at 
that time rejected with some indignation. All the deputies, 
however, are in some sort deprived of deliberative functions, for 
they are merely the delegates of their constituents, and are so 
far bound to follow their instructions, that, should they depart 
from them, and be unable satisfactorily to explain their conduct, 
they are immediately displaced, and succeeded by more obedient 
representatives. The lower chamber has a president called 
Personalis. The forty-six counties have ninety-two deputies, 
but only 46 votes : Croatia has one, Sclavonia three, the free 
towns one, the chapters one ; making in all fifty -four votes. 



90 MIXED ARISTOCRACIES HUNGARY. [CH. IX. 

The crown has alone the power of convoking the Diet ; but the 
law requires it to be assembled once in three years. This, how- 
ever, has been so little attended to, that only three Diets were con- 
vened in the forty years' reign of Maria Theresa; and Joseph II. 
never called a Diet at all during his ten years' reign. There was 
no Diet from 1 813 to 1825 : the Diet of that year lasted two years. 
Each Diet is a newly-elected body ; no prorogation is known ; 
and the same Diet has been known to sit for three or four years. 
The most extraordinary part of its constitution is the uncertainty 
which still prevails as to what part of the magnates the right of 
voting, resides in ; for the right of created nobles to vote with 
those by office and estate is so much a matter of dispute, that the 
Palatine, who has, since the time of Maria Theresa, always been 
an archduke, and is chosen by the diet from four candidates 
named by the crown, has frequently been known to reject the 
determination of an absolute majority as president of the cham- 
ber, and to declare a question carried or rejected by the majority 
of the undisputed votes. The existence of such a doubt clearly 
indicates either that this branch of the Diet is seldom appealed 
to, or that its assent is reckoned of comparatively little import- 
ance. It is another and a revolting absurdity in the constitu- 
tion of the Diet, that the nobles, like those of Poland, instead of 
delegating all powers to their deputies, and suffering them to aCt 
for themselves, claim the right of attending in person also ; and 
accordingly they crowd the chamber, taking part by cheer- 
ing and other interruptions, though they have never claimed 
the right of speech or of protest, as the Poles have on one im- 
portant proceeding at least — the choice of the marshal or pre- 
sident. The language spoken in the chamber of magnates is 
almost always Latin. The policy of the court has been of late 
years to estrange the Hungarians of high rank from their 
country, so that they are educated, and generally reside, at 
Vienna, and are unacquainted with their mother tongue. It is 
further to be observed, that the upper chamber has only the 
right of assent or refusal to the resolutions of the lower. No 
measure whatever can be originated in the chamber of magnates. 
The two chambers in Hungary, as everywhere else, formerly 
sat together ; their separation, which was as late as 1 562, is said 
to have arisen from the accident of the hall being too small to 
contain both. In this respect Hungary agrees with the other 
feudal kingdoms. But it has one custom of great value, and 






CH. IX.] TAXATION. 91 

peculiar to itself. When the chambers (tabulce) differ, recourse 
is had to what is termed a mixed sitting, in which both sit, dis- 
cuss, and vote together. Hence concession and compromise are 
more conveniently effected in Hungary than anywhere else, and 
all collision is avoided. 

The Diet's principal function is legislative, that is, by the 
theory of the constitution ; for the Empress Queen, finding how 
refractory it was, and how resolved to refuse all grant of privi- 
leges to the bulk of the nobles and the peasantry, issued her 
celebrated edict, the Urbarium of 1765, which has been held to 
have the force of law, though part is enactive, and only part 
declaratory. The levying of taxes is also in the hands of the 
Diet, as well as their distribution for collection among the dif- 
ferent districts. But in practice this important right seems con- 
fined to direct taxation, from which the nobles being exempt, 
the Diet, their representative, is sure to refuse all such supplies 
as cannot be raised upon the townsfolk and the peasantry ; and 
hence the sovereign has introduced a large amount of indirect 
taxes, which of course fall on the nobles as well as on other classes 
of consumers. Thus, of the whole revenue, amounting to nearly 
three millions and a half sterling, no less than two millions are 
raised by a salt-tax or salt-monopoly, which amounts to the same 
thing, and 150,000/. by customs; all foreign goods pay sixty- 
five per cent., and goods from Austria five per cent. The crown- 
lands yield 120,000/., and the mines 100,000/. ; and the direct 
taxes, falling on the peasants and citizens alone, raise between 
500,000 and 600,000/. The raising a salt-tax without consent 
of the Diet has been always held illegal by the Hungarians ; but 
the imperfect federal system has always made their complaints 
vain. Had the sovereign no other dominions but Hungary, this 
impost never could have been levied : his other resources enable 
him to continue a tax which, though falling equally on the poor 
and the rich, effectually neutralizes the privilege, so highly 
prized by the nobles, of being exempt from taxation ; and the 
tax will assuredly be kept up until, yielding to the voice of 
reason and justice, the nobles shall consent to bear their share of 
the public burthens directly imposed. 

It is not only in the general taxation of the state that this ex- 
emption is claimed by the Hungarian nobles ; they pay none of 
the local taxes, called the Cassa Domestica, in contradistinction 



92 MIXED ARISTOCRACIES — HUNGARY. [CH. IX. 

to the Cassa Militaris, or those raised by the Diet and the 
Crown for general purposes. The Cassa Domestica is wholly 
raised by the votes of the county meetings, and it is wholly paid 
by the commoners or peasants, and townsfolk. But it is wholly 
administered, as well as wholly imposed, by the nobles alone. 
Yet out of this money, thus levied on the peasants, are paid not 
only the expenses of a local kind, as roads and bridges, but the 
salaries of places which nobles only can hold, including the pay 
(twelve shillings a-day) of the deputies to the Diet, which has, 
however, now ceased. The greatest practical reformer of the 
age, a corresponding member of this Society, Count Szechinij, 
has carried the point of making them, and for the first time, pay 
toll or pontage on using the new bridge at Pest. The Diet, 
but with difficulty, were persuaded to sanction this waiver of 
privilege — a small step certainly ; for the refusal to pay amounted 
to insisting upon having the benefit of a public work to the ex- 
pense of which they would not contribute. 

The local administration of the counties is twofold, as it re- 
sides in the country districts or in the municipalities. The forty- 
six counties have each its local administration, changing their 
officers once in three years ; and even the execution of the 
general laws made by the Diet, and of the edicts which the 
Crown sometimes issues of its own authority, must in all cases 
be left to the local officers. The Crown names the chief of them 
or lord lieutenant, called Fo Ispan; the others are chosen by 
the nobles of each county. Among these others the All or Vice- 
Ispan or Vice- Comes, as he is called, has nearly the functions of our 
vice- comes or sheriff": he is constantly resident, which the lord- 
lieutenant hardly ever is ; he directs the police, and decides small 
' causes, both of debt and breach of the peace. The place is much 
sought after by the nobles, not so much for the small salary an- 
nexed to it of about 80/., as for the influence which it gives, and 
the practice of public business. The county magistrate, called 
Szolgo-Birok, is not necessarily a noble. The Crown, in its Lieu- 
tenant, has the important right of what is called Candidatio in all 
elections ; that is, it names three persons, of whom the nobles choose 
one. This right, however, is in practice much limited ; for the 
persons of leading influence are almost always selected — that 
is, such persons as are secure of having powerful support from the 
electors. The exercise of political functions in their county meet- 



CH. IX.] crown's prerogatives. 93 

ings, and of rights in choosing their magistrates, has tended to 
give the Hungarians far more political knowledge,, by turning 
their minds to state affairs, than might have been expected from 
a people whose press is under such strict censorship. Travellers 
represent them as not only singularly attentive to all passing 
events, but exceedingly well informed upon political matters 
generally. Their meetings, however, do not always pass off 
very quietly : on the contrary, an election is with them the 
scene, if not of as much corruption, certainly of far more vio- 
lence than either ours of England, or even those of Ireland. As 
many as eight persons were lately killed at the restauration or 
election of officers for a single county in one year. 

But the county meetings (congregationes generates) are of a 
much higher importance than may, from this statement, at first 
appear. They are attended by all the nobles and ecclesiastics, and 
as many as 4,000 persons may be present. Beside directing local 
matters, they put in force all the decrees of the Diet : by these 
they are bound ; but not by the royal ordinances, which they 
examine most scrupulously, and if they find anything in such 
an edict repugnant to the national rights or noble privileges, they 
have the power of putting it on the shelf (cum honor e deponere), 
so that it is no more heard of in that county. Thus each county 
forms, in some sort, a separate state ; and Hungary has been 
by some deemed a kind of federal monarchy. 

The government of the towns is in the hands of a senate and 
a council, called Kozseg : these are self- elected. The Senate of 
Pest consists of twelve, the Council of one hundred and twenty 
members. There is also a mayor, a judge, and a commissary of 
police. The three superior officers are annually chosen ; the 
others are for life. In these, as in the county elections, the 
Crown has the Candidatio ; but there is a wide difference in its 
exercise, for the town officers are all, like the town deputies to 
the Diet, the mere creatures of the government, and for the same 
reason — the veto of the crown upon all public expenditure ; 
while those of the country are extremely independent, generally 
speaking. 

In the villages, the magistrates are elective; the lord here 
having the candidatio. He has also the monopoly of meat, and 
wine, in his villages ; a right fearfully calculated to produce 
oppression. 



91 MIXED ARISTOCRACIES — HUNGARY. [CH. IX. 

We have now surveyed the privileges of the nobles, the only 
body of the nation whom the constitution appears to recognise. 
But in this survey we have incidentally had occasion to see the 
main points in the position of both the crown and the peasantry 
or commons. The king has, beside those prerogatives which we 
have mentioned, the exclusive appointment of all officers, civil, 
military, and ecclesiastical, except those whose election he shares 
with the nobles, and except the Palatine, who presides in the 
Upper Chamber of the Diet, and is chosen by the two Houses. 
The king also grants the privileges of nobility at his pleasure, 
except the Indigenat, or nobility to foreigners, which can only 
be conferred by the Diet. All hereditary titles of nobility also 
flow from the crown. Money is often raised in this manner 
by the crown, as we may remember we found it to be in France 
(Part I., Chap. XIII.). The title of Count has generally fetched 
5000/. ; that of Baron 2000/. But it is said that an eminent 
tailor of London, Mr. Stultz, was, probably in consideration of 
his calling, made to pay 10,000/. for being made a Baron. The 
right of pardoning convicts is also a part of the royal preroga- 
tive ; and a power still more important than all the rest is pos- 
sessed by the sovereign — he has the unrestricted control of the 
expenditure of all public money, whether raised by vote of the 
Diet, or by edict, as the salt-tax, or proceeding from crown lands 
and other regalia. No account whatever of this expenditure is 
ever rendered to the Diet. The coronation oath binds the king, 
not only to maintain the Constitution inviolate, but also to re- 
unite to the kingdom all the provinces which have ever been 
lost, as Bosnia, Servia, Wallachia. 

The peasants are contradistinguished from the people ; the 
word populus being in Hungary, as in ancient Rome, confined 
to the patrician body, the nobles, clergy, and citizens of free 
towns. The rest of the community are termed plebs, and fre- 
quently plebs misera contribuens — a singularly significant expres- 
sion, designating at once the state of the people, and the privi- 
lege or exemption, which the nobles chiefly prize. One is here 
reminded of the French description of the Poturiers, " gens 
taillables et corveables" Originally they were astricted to the 
soil ; but in 1405 a law was made suffering them to quit with 
the lord's leave, which, however, was not to be arbitrarily or 
capriciously withheld. The language of one of the old ]aw r s is 



CH. ix.] lord's jurisdiction. 95 

remarkable : it gives protection to the peasantry — " Ne omnis 
rusticitas delectur, sine qua nobilitis parum valet." At the be- 
ginning of the sixteenth century, their rebellion under Dosa 
having been quelled, they were reduced again to complete ser- 
vitude by a law which was repealed in 1547, and re-enacted the 
year after, and afterwards much modified in 1556. 

In the Diet of 1764 Maria Theresa in vain endeavoured 
to obtain a more favourable law from the nobles ; and there- 
fore she issued her famous Urbarium, which is partly declaratory, 
like the Bulla aurea, in favour of the inferior nobles ; but partly 
also inactive. The peasant had by this important instrument 
the free power of leaving his land, provided his debts are paid 
and there is no criminal charge against him ; but his lord can- 
not remove him. A portion of land was allotted to him of from 
sixteen to forty acres of arable, and from six to twelve of pasture, 
with a house and one acre of garden-ground. His money pay- 
ments were reduced to a mere trifle ; and his service or labour, 
called Robot, was fixed at one hundred and four days without 
his team, fifty-two with it, by one or two days in the week, un- 
less at harvest-time, when it might be doubled. He was, beside 
this, to render a small amount in kind of poultry or vegetables, 
and to contribute if the lord were to be ransomed in war, or to 
have a child married. The power of inflicting corporal punish- 
ment was likewise reduced to the bestowing of twenty-five lashes. 
The obligation of soc or grinding at the lord's mill was abolished : 
the lord's power of taking the peasant's land was confined to the 
case of his requiring it for building his own house upon, and 
then he must find other land equally valuable ; and the peasant 
was allowed to take wood in the lord's forest for his needful 
occasions, a right resembling our fire and hedge bote. 

One of the greatest grievances which this wise and liberal 
measure left was the Lord's Court, having jurisdiction of dis- 
putes, not only between peasant and peasant, but also between 
the lord and peasant ; the judge being named by the former. 
The power of inflicting capital punishment is now only possessed 
by some few lords, or by special grant. Prince Esterhazy is one 
of those few. The new Urbarium of 1835, which does the great- 
est honour to the eminent statesman so long at the head of the 
Austrian Councils, removed this cause of complaint. Prince 
Metternich provided by this edict that the jurisdiction of the 
Lord's or Manor Court should be confined to causes between 



96 MIXED ARISTOCRACIES — HUNGARY. [CH. IX. 

peasant and peasant, and that all questions arising between lord 
and peasant should be henceforth tried by a new court composed 
of the district magistrate and four disinterested persons. He 
abolished all right of inflicting corporal punishment, restricting 
the Lord's Court to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three 
days, in case the peasant failed to perform his services. Small 
tithes and extraordinary gifts were also abolished, and the pea- 
sant was not to be compelled to make long journeys with his team 
in order to do his appointed service for the lord. The noble 
was made liable to all taxes, local and general, in respect of 
peasant or ignoble land purchased by him ; and in return for 
such large concessions he only acquired the right of freely de- 
vising his land if childless ; the right of division among children, 
if any, remaining ; the right to have his share of all the land 
lying contiguous ; and the free right of selling his land. Many 
nobles compound with their peasants for the robot or labour. 
Count Szechinij compounds for about one-third of the one hun- 
dred and four days, or the fifty-two with team. 

The military system of the Hungarian monarchy is singularly 
inefficient. The insurrectionary army or levy en masse on inva- 
sion was found wholly useless in 1809, when Napoleon had 
penetrated to Vienna and occupied Presburgh itself: it was hard 
to say whether the troops or their accoutrements were the least 
capable of actual service in the field. Yet the numbers raised 
were 40,000 men by the counties, and 45,000 by the towns. The 
military frontier towards Turkey is better provided for defence. 
This extensive coast, reaching a thousand miles from the Adriatic 
eastward, and comprising 18,000 square miles of territory, is in- 
habited by a warlike people, all the peasants being soldiers, and 
holding their land by a strictly military tenure. Of these, 45,000 
are constantly under arms, and their numbers might be raised to 
100,000 in case of necessity. The whole system is military. The 
country is divided into four commanderies, under so many gover- 
nors, and all the officers exercise both civil and military jurisdic- 
tion. The Aulic Council of Vienna regulates the whole. In 
each family a patriarchal authority resides ; the property is in 
common ; the chief, termed Gospodar, being the father of the 
clan, and all the adult males have voices in the management of 
the common concerns. But this portion of the empire is not 
properly Hungarian. 

Such is the Hungarian Constitution — "the ancient idol of the 



CH. IX.] WORKS ON HUNGARY. 97 

nation/' as one of their own authors has said; and an idol to 
whose worship they have sacrificed their country, and made 
themselves three hundred years behind the rest of Europe in 
every branch of social improvement. This constitution means, 
in the mouths of its votaries, the privileges of the nobles, the 
oppression of the people, the neglect of national prosperity, the 
sacrifice of real and solid advantages to a nominal glory and 
empty pride. It is by another of these authors charged as the 
cause why he deeply grieves to see his countrymen wretched, 
degenerated, and grovelling in the dust. 



The contemplation of the Polish and Hungarian Governments 
gives rise to constant recollections of the general principles un- 
folded respecting the Aristocratic system. All the vices of that 
policy receive exemplification from the effects produced in both 
countries by the vices which were described as inseparable from 
its existence. But it would be difficult to trace, in the history of 
either, any of those redeeming virtues which we found reason to 
admire in the government of Yenice, and of which the Aristo- 
cratic principle infuses the influence in mixed constitutions, 
such as our own, when it forms a part of them, and a part of the 
greatest value and importance. 

We have now examined the general principles which govern 
the structure and functions of the Aristocratic System, and have 
illustrated those principles by contemplating the mixed aristo- 
cracies of Poland and Hungary. We are now to inquire into 
the structure and functions of the other Aristocratic Governments 
in ancient and in modern times, beginning with the government 
of Rome.* 

* The i Statistica Hungarian' of Horvath, 1802, is one of the best works on Hungary. 
— The 'Travels' of Mr. Paget, 2 vols. 8vo., 1836, contains much valuable informa- 
tion upon all subjects connected with Hungary and the Hungarians. — The works which 
have been chiefly relied on for information upon the three material points of creation of 
nobles, inheritance of land, and jurisdiction of nobles, are, Novotny, ' Sciagraphia 
Hungarian,' (1798,) Pars I., p. 103 — Werboez, ' Corpus Juris Hungarici,' Pars I., Tit. 
3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 40, 47-53, 57; Pars II., Tit. 12 ; Pars III., Tit. 32— < Decret.' an. 1630, 
Art. 30; 1435, Art. 2 ; 1550, Art. 77 — Demian, ' Tableau des Royaumes de Hongrie, 1 
&c. (1809) II., 329. — Original information of much value has also been obtained from 
eminent persons connected with public affairs. 



PART II. H 



98 [ch. x. 



CHAPTER X, 



CONSTITUTION OF HOME. 



Importance of (he subject — Its great difficulty — Ancient historians — Modem writers — 
Predecessors of Niebuhr — Niebuhr and his school — Scantiness of materials — Cha- 
racter of Niebuhr's writings — Early history entirely fabulous — Illustrations — Early 
divisions of the People — Early Constitution — The Tribes — Patricians — Plebeians — 
Patrons — Clients — Comitia Curiata — Niebuhr's doctrine examined — Equites — Re- 
forms of Servius — Centuries and Comitia Centuriata — Legislation of Servius — 
Comparison with Solon's — Tarquin the Proud — His tyranny — His expulsion — 
Foundation of the Aristocratic Republic — Fabulous history — Comparison of the 
Roman Revolution with the French and English. 

The constitution of ancient Rome at the different periods of 
its history forms a subject of such curious inquiry, and of such 
useful contemplation to the political student, that we must of 
necessity examine it attentively, notwithstanding the great 
obscurity in which a considerable portion of it is involved. 
Nothing, indeed, can be more difficult than to obtain a distinct 
and accurate account of its earlier stages ; and some parts even 
of its later history are encumbered with much doubt. The Ro- 
man historians all belonged to an age very remote from that in 
which the foundations of the government were laid. Livy and 
Dionysius lived in the time of Augustus, seven centuries after 
the building of the city ; four and a half after the establishment 
of the Commonwealth. The age of Polybius was two centuries 
nearer the times in question ; but his detailed narrative is con- 
fined to the transactions of his own day, although our most cer- 
tain lights upon the earlier times are undoubtedly derived from 
what has reached us at secondhand of his general summary, and 
from his incidental remarks. Plutarch, besides that he lived 
much later — nine centuries after the building of the city — had 



CH. X.] ANCIENT HISTORIANS. 99 

been very little in Italy, and possessed an extremely imperfect 
knowledge of the language. Livy, too, appears to have been 
deficient in the essential qualities of the historian. He is now 
universally allowed to have been so careless in examining the 
evidence of facts which he relates, and so much biassed by a 
disposition to favour one party and one class of opinions, that he 
is little entitled to our confidence, and, indeed, only claims our 
unqualified admiration by the charm of his unrivalled style, 
which must have placed him at the head of all historians had he 
but maintained an ordinary reputation for the more cardinal vir- 
tues of industry and fidelity.* Dionysius, though he had con- 
sulted the authorities much more diligently than Livy, yet 
evinces no discrimination in the use of them ; and having written 
with the undisguised purpose of flattering the national vanity of 
his countrymen by representing the Roman origin and institu- 
tions as derived from Greece, his fidelity stands very much 
lower than that of the celebrated Roman author. Besides, neither 
the one nor the other has described the ancient government with 
any minuteness ; nothing upon the system is to be found in their 
writings : it is, indeed, by casual observations, or as incidental to 
the narrative of events, that we find anything like the outline of 
any of the institutions ; and their statements are often at variance 
both with one another and with themselves. 

The uncertainty of the whole early history of Rome had long 
been well known to all who critically examined it as recorded by 
those writers, and as referred to in other classical remains. It 
had not escaped the habitual sagacity and scepticism of Voltaire, f 

* The carelessness of Livy, the credulity of Plutarch, and the bad faith of Diony- 
sius, are often complained of. But can anything exceed some of the stories in 
Valerius Maximus ? It seems hardly credible that any respectable person should have 
set down such things as he has brought together. Thus he relates, as if he were 
describing an ordinary occurrence, that one of the ten tribunes (twenty-nine years 
before there were more than five, and fifteen years before there were above two) burnt 
his nine colleagues alive for preventing a choice of successors — that being a capital 
offence by a law only made thirty-seven years after — although the historian well knew 
that neither Livy nor Dionysius, nor any one but the inaccurate Zonaras, had ever 
made the least allusion to such a tale, and although he also knew that the alleged 
ground of the massacre is inconsistent with the whole current of events. — (Val. Max., 
vi. 3, 2.) 

f See particularly the Introduction to the Essai sur les Mceurs. — Bayle, with all his 
scepticism, does not appear to have questioned the authenticity of the ancient histories 
where they relate no miracles ; yet he frequently, as in his article on Lucretia, points 
out their discrepancies. 

H 2 



100 CONSTITUTION OF ROM K. [CH. X. 

A more learned and accurate scholar, M. Beaufort, had made it 
the subject of a separate treatise a hundred years ago.* Peri- 
zonius had taken nearly the Bame view of the matter half a cen- 
tury before; and Cluverius had devoted a portion of his great 
work (Italia Antiqua) to an elaborate statement of the contra- 
dictions and uncertainties of the Roman historians. JJut it was 
not till the beginning of the present century that the subject 
underwent a full investigation, and that the portions which may 
be relied on were separated from those which are purely fanciful 
or greatly misrepresented. The Germans havs, as usual with 
that excellent and admirable people, been the principal la- 
bourers' in this department of literature ; and it is to Niebuhr 
chiefly, and after him to Gottling, and Wachsmith, and Savigny,f 
that we are indebted for the materials from which a more correct 
view of the subject is now obtained. Nevertheless those mate- 
rials are after all very scanty for the formation of a complete 
history. Writing in the first three centuries was but rarely used, 
and the meagre registers of events which the pontiffs kept, with 
whatever inscriptions had been carved on brass, almost all pe- 
rished when the city was sacked and burnt by the Gauls, A. u. c. 
360 (304 according to Varro). The few monuments that could 
be collected, after the Gauls retreated, were very little consulted 
by the early historians, who appear, like Livy and Dionysius, 
to have rather occupied themselves with putting the traditions 
preserved in popular songs + into the form of a narrative than 
with any examination of the evidence upon which those tradi- 
tions rested. Moreover, as even the earliest historians, too, 
lived five centuries and a half after the foundation of the city, 
their knowledge of the subject was little more likely to be cor- 
rect than that of later writers. It is only by examining and 
comparing the narratives thus composed, the fragments of old 



* L' Incertitude des Cinque Premiers Siecles de THistoire Romaine, 1738. His work 
on the Roman Government (La Republique Romaine, 2 vols. 4to.) was published in 
1760, and is by far the most learned and accurate treatise on the subject. 

f Heyue, in 1703, placed the subject of the Agrarian laws upon its right footing; 
and Yico, a learned Italian, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, had taken, with 
regard to some important points, the same view of the Constitution which late inquiries 
have countenanced. 

| The learned and ingenious work of Mr. Bfacaulay, ' Lavs of Ancient Rome,' well 
deserves to be consulted by the reader of the early Roman history. — Mr. M. might 
render much service by undertaking ,i Roman history, still a grea( desideratum. 






CH. X.] DIFFICULTIES OF THE INQUIRY. 101 

laws, and other monuments accidentally preserved in them, the 
allusion to facts scattered over other matters, above all the 
treatise of Cicero on Government (De Republicd), fortunately 
recovered in part, and in composing which he appears to have 
relied for the early history upon the lost books of Polybius, that 
any approach can be made to the real truth respecting the origin 
of the Roman Government. That Cicero himself should in some 
respects have fallen into mistakes concerning it, that in his time 
the subject should have been surrounded with doubt, can little 
surprise us, when we reflect how much controversy prevails 
among ourselves at this day upon the early history of the English 
parliament, although we only live at the distance of six centuries 
from the events in question, and the use of writing has been uni- 
versal during the whole time, and although a body of men devoted 
to literary pursuits has always existed, and the records of the 
age are still in perfect preservation. Much of the uncertainty 
which prevails upon these important subjects arises, both in the 
history of the Roman government and our own, from contem- 
porary writers omitting to describe matters of familiar observa- 
tion, and which they assumed that every one must be aware of; 
a remark applicable not only to the early but to the later history 
also of the Roman institutions. 

Finally, it must be stated as an additional embarrassment to 
the student, that the most important work upon the subject, that 
of Niebuhr, is written in a manner peculiarly confused and ob- 
scure. He shows no management or mastery of his materials ; 
he never keeps in mind the necessity of proceeding from things 
already explained to new information ; he does not state plainly, 
and by way of either narrative or exposition, what he has to tell, 
but works by reference, and remark, and allusion ; he forgets 
that he is to instruct us, and assumes that we already know the 
matter he is dealing with. A work less didactic, less clear and 
plain, less easily or agreeably followed, can with difficulty be 
named, among books of the class to which it unquestionably 
belongs, works of sterling value and original genius. 

Such are the difficulties of the inquiry upon which we are 
about to enter ; and if we would form a notion how necessary it 
is to the accurate knowledge of the Roman government, we have 
only to recollect the great errors into which authors of the highest 
reputation have been led by indiscriminately taking for granted 



102 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [cH. X. 

whatever they find in the two most famous Latin historians. 
Not only have most of the commentators, as Sigonius,* Onu- 
phrius Panvinius,f P. Manutius,+ treated as authentic every 
thing save the miracles, which Livy himself was fain to reject; 
but Machiavel and Montesquieu actually suppose, from the 
manner in which Dionysius speaks of Romulus dividing the land, 
that each person at Rome had a small allotment which he could 
not exceed without breach of the law; and both these authors, 
conceiving this poverty and equality to be essential parts of a 
republican government, regard the Agrarian laws, from time to 
time propounded, as attempts to restore the equality by enforc- 
ing this imaginary maximum. § Under the pressure of these 
difficulties, and the influence of these inducements, it is fit that 
we now proceed to deal with the subject. 

That a certain portion of the early Roman history is purely 
fabulous, no one of course has ever doubted ; but it was a long 
time imagined that the greater part might be true, and thus men 
had become habituated to believe everything but the preter- 
natural passages. There seems, however, no foundation for the 
belief that the greater part of the story is an account of real 
events, or even that all the actors in the scenes described were 
really existing persons. Some of them may have had no existence 
at all ; and some of the events are certainly mere poetical fictions, 
not quite so improbable as the miraculous portions of the tale, 
but quite as unreal. Thus a close examination of the accounts 
of Romulus, and his supposed brother Remus, has led all who 
have undertaken it to the conclusion that the whole is a fiction, 
and that Romulus is only the personification of the Romans, the 
earliest inhabitants of Rome, as iEolus among the Greeks was of 
the iEolians, and Dorus of the Dorians. The personal existence 
of Numa is at the best extremely doubtful, though it has not 
been given up so completely as that of Romulus. The sounder 

* De Ant. Jur. Civ. Rom. He supposes that Romulus established the relation of 
patron and client universally between the patricians and plebeians. 

f De Civ. Rom., cap. vii. He gives the impossible fable of the Rape of the Sabines 
at length. 

I De Senatit, cap. i. He adopts the same notion as to patrons and clients with 
Sigonius. Paul Manutius {De Civ. Rom.) terms Livy " Scriptor interdum parum dili- 
gens;" but in the same passage describes Dionysius as an author of the most consum- 
mate accuracy, and one " cui fidem non habere nemo debeat." 

§ Mach., Discorsi, I. — Mont., Gra?id. et Dec, cap. 3. He makes this supposed 
equality the main cause of the Roman power. 



CH. X.] EARLY HISTORY WHOLLY FABULOUS. 103 

opinion seems to be that these two kings must be taken merely 
as representing two early periods of the history of the people ; 
Romulus, or the age of Romulus, being the earliest period, when 
the Romans were at war for the existence of their horde and 
town with all around them — Numa, or his age, being the subse- 
quent period of comparative tranquillity, when some progress 
was made in the arts of peace. Of the events so constantly re- 
cited, one may be mentioned, as an example of universal credit 
being given to a narrative almost as contrary to the ordinary 
course of nature as the supposed relationship of the god Mars to 
the founder of the city. The rape of the Sabines could not 
possibly have happened in anything resembling the way in which 
it is related ; not to mention that one account makes the number of 
women seized amount only to 30, while Dionysius gives it at 527, 
and Plutarch at 683 : numbers manifestly taken at random, either 
by the authors, or by the makers of some ancient ballads, from 
whom they copied. Similar inconsistencies and improbabilities 
are to be found in the succeeding reigns, even when the persons 
mentioned appear to have had a real existence. The fight of 
the Horatii and Curiatii is in all its particulars evidently poeti- 
cal ; but the murder of the elder Tarquin by the sons of Ancus, 
thirty- eight years after he had obtained the crown in preference 
to them, and at the time when he must soon have been removed 
out of their way by old age, to say nothing of the manner in 
which it is said to have been perpetrated (by a peasant sent to 
ask at an audience redress for some injury) and of the contrivers 
of the plot suffering Servius, Tarquin's favourite, to rule in his 
name some days after he was killed — all this is manifestly a fic- 
tion, and, if intended to pass for history, a very clumsy fiction ; 
and other stories expose and refute themselves. But parts of 
the early history, which are not so improbable, seem equally 
unfounded : as the accounts of Tarquin silently striking off the 
heads of the tallest poppies to suggest a proscription of the chief 
men at Gabii, when the emissaries from his partisans there came 
to receive his instructions. This is plainly borrowed from 
Herodotus, who recounts that the same symbolical advice was 
given to Periander ; and indeed the rape of the Sabines bears a 
close resemblance to a passage in his history, the rape of the 
Athenian women by the Pelasgi of Lemnos. — (Lib. vi. cap. 
137.) 



104 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [cH. X. 

That the city was founded about the year 753 before the 
Christian sera, is the opinion now most prevalent, although Sir 
Isaac Newton's chronology fixes the date at G93. That we may 
find at a very early period the origin of those divisions among 
the inhabitants, and of those institutions which with some material 
alterations were continued for many ages, seems nearly certain ; 
and these changes appear to have begun very early, some of 
them at the beginning and others at the end of the second cen- 
tury from the foundation of the city. 

By tracing back these divisions and institutions, with the help 
of tradition and the occasional mention of particulars in various 
classical remains, we seem justified in concluding that at the 
earliest period, the period assigned to Romulus — in other words, 
the beginning of the nation — the inhabitants consisted of a single 
tribe, akin to the Latins, but that another, the Sabines, was in a 
few years added ; and that the former were called Ravines, the 
latter Titles or Titicnses. Each tribe was composed of freemen, 
children of freemen alone ; and the whole free people formed the 
two tribes. Each tribe consisted of a hundred houses, clans, or 
kindreds (gentes), consisting of different families originally re- 
lated to one another, but afterwards agreeing chiefly in having 
the same religious rites ; and they were divided into bodies 
called curies, of ten houses (gentes). A chief, or king, was at 
the head of the whole : he was chosen by them, and had the 
command of their forces in all warlike or predatory operations. 
He was also the chief priest and the chief judge of the commu- 
nity; but the other powers of government were vested in a 
council or senate, chosen out of the tribes in the manner to be 
presently examined.* The persons composing these two tribes 
were not only free and free-born, but also natives, that is, born in 
the place and descended from natives. The tribes thus consisted 
of all the inhabitants who were both free, free-born, and native. 
There were others who did not come within this description, 

* Among the theories propounded on this subject there is one of Gottling, which has 
met with great favour, and, as it should seem, very unjustly. It represents the houses 
(gentes) as divided into ten curia? or bodies often, and then supposes a second division 
into ten decuries, consisting of parts of gentes, and so arranged for the purpose of choos- 
ing a decurio, to be the senator of each decuria, thus supposing a refinement still greater 
than mere representation ; for it is a division of ihe same bodies in two different ways 
for different purposes. Both Niebuhr and the other recent authorities entirely reject 
Livy's theory of nomination by the king ; yet it cannot be denied that the probabilities 
are much in favour of some such scheme. 



CH. X.] EARLY CONSTITUTION— TRIBES. 105 

and these were chiefly poor followers of the families, slaves set 
free, or the children of slaves, and strangers who had come to 
live in the new city. None of these were classed in either tribe ; 
but the followers and freed- men were dependants upon the houses 
or individual members of the tribe, and called clients, from the 
Greek word *, signifying to hear or obey. It is probable that 
the strangers were mostly of the same origin as the population of 
the country on the west of the Tiber, or Southern Etruria, and 
became a much more numerous and important body, when, about 
a century after the foundation of the city, the inhabitants of 
Alba removed to Rome upon their town being destroyed, and 
were classed with the Tuscan settlers. A third class, composed 
of these free men, was then added to the two former, and called 
Luceres; supposed by some to be a Tuscan name. It was divided, 
like the other two, into ten curiae, or bodies of ten houses (gentes) 
each, and it had, like the Ramnes and Tities (the Latins and the 
Sabines), its followers, dependants, or clients. These houses, 
however, of this third tribe were regarded as inferior to those of 
the other two, and called the lesser (minor es gentes), the others 
being the greater {major es gentes) . There seems less reason to 
suppose that Tullus Hostilius, in whose reign this addition of a 
third tribe took place, was an imaginary person, than that Ro- 
mulus and Numa were such ; but nothing can be more impro- 
bable than the greater portion of the stories related of his times, 
especially the most remarkable of them, the battle of the Horatii 
and the Curiatii. 

In the next reign, that of Ancus, there is more reliance to 
be placed upon the narrative ; and it appears that in his time 
considerable bodies of Latins came to settle at Rome on the 
capture of their towns ; but they were not formed into a sepa- 
rate tribe, or enrolled among the three already formed. Nor 
of the last of those three, the Luceres, were any members ad- 
mitted into the senate until the next reign, that of Tarquin the 
Elder, when a hundred of them were added to the senate, but 
called Senators or Fathers of the lesser houses (patres minorum 
gentium) — those of the Ramnes and Tities being of the greater 
(major um gentium). The Latin and other strangers thus formed 
a body of persons separated from and inferior to the three tribes, 
still more than the third tribe was separated from and inferior to 

* KXvuv. An old Latin word had the same sense. 



106 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. X. 

the other two. This body is by some writers, of which Niebuhr 
is the chief, considered to have had no existence before the set- 
tlement of the Latins in the time of Ancus. But though its 
members were increased by that settlement, it must, to a certain 
degree, have been in existence previously ; because those who 
afterwards composed the Luceres had stood in the same relation 
to the Ramncs and Tities before they became a third tribe, in 
which the Latin settlers in Ancus's time stood to the three tribes ; 
they were aliens, and enjoyed no political rights; the tribes, 
that is, the free and native people, were alone regarded. They 
may, in a sense, be said to have formed a privileged class, as 
compared with the others; but it is much more correct to say 
that the whole Roman people — all the free and free-born natives 
— were alone regarded in the government from the earliest times ; 
and that the others, chiefly aliens, had no place in it. The mem- 
bers of the tribes were called patres or fathers ; and afterwards, 
when the title of patres began to be given peculiarly to the more 
ancient of the body, who constituted the senate, they were called 
Patricians, or members of the class to which the patres be- 
longed. Those who depended on them as clients were reckoned 
with them, and in some sort were considered to be part of the 
tribe to which their patrons belonged, though they did not share 
its rights, except through those patrons. The rest of the com- 
munity were called plebs — plebeians, or commonalty. 

But out of this distribution there soon arose the relation of a 
privileged to an unprivileged class. The number of the houses 
was necessarily limited to those who had been of the three tribes 
always ; for no family could be enrolled among them unless by 
an act of the whole State adopting or naturalizing them, or by 
filling certain high offices ; consequently the numbers of their 
.members never could greatly increase ; indeed they continued for 
a long course of years to do little more than maintain their origi- 
nal numbers, while the plebeians rapidly increased, not only by 
the natural progress of population, but by other means. Settlers 
flocked to the city as often as it conquered any Italian town ; 
dependants, or clients, on the family of their patrons being ex- 
tinct, became plebeians if they did not choose any other patron ; 
slaves who obtained their freedom, though they generally became 
clients of their former masters, yet sometimes were thrown off 
altogether, and became plebeians. The patricians, too, were not 



CH. X.] PATRICIANS AND PLEBEIANS. 107 

allowed to intermarry with the plebeians ; and the fruits of any 
connection thus formed being illegitimate, all became plebeians. 
As the plebeian body, then, continued to increase, while the 
numbers of the patricians remained at first nearly stationary, 
and afterwards began to decline, a division of the whole nation 
into two classes was well established ; and the smaller class had 
rights which the larger body did not share. 

The only difference between the account here given of the 
plebeian body's origin, and that given by Niebuhr and his fol- 
lowers, is, that they consider the body to have been established 
all at once in the time of Ancus ; whereas we hold it much more 
consistent with the facts and with probability to consider this 
body as having gradually increased from the very beginning. 
Indeed, even Niebuhr, although he considers the great body of 
the plebeians to have been formed out of the Latins who became 
subject to Eome in the time of Ancus, acknowledges that such a 
body as we have described must have arisen in the very earliest 
times. But the existence of the patricians as a privileged order 
— in other words, the existence of an aristocracy — cannot, with 
any accuracy, be referred to the earliest times, when all the 
people, that is, the tribes or free and native Romans, enjoyed 
the privileges for themselves and their retainers, foreigners alone 
and slaves being excluded. , It is only when a body, and a large 
body, of native Romans had grown up, the descendants of 
foreigners, freed-men, the offspring of illicit intercourse, and 
cast-off retainers, that we can with any correctness of speech 
denominate the patricians, descendants of the original free and 
native houses, a privileged order, and the government, in which 
they held exclusive authority, an aristocracy. 

Beside their exclusive right to places in the senate, the patri- 
cians exercised direct authority as a body. The curiae into 
which the houses were formed met in an assembly called the 
comitia curiata, which appears to have been attended not only 
by the heads of the houses (gentes), but by all housekeepers, 
that is, by the heads of all families. Those are manifestly wrong 
who suppose that it was a representative body ; that is, a body of 
persons either named by the houses, or who, from their position 
at the head of those houses, might be said to attend the assembly 
on their part. For, in that case, whether we regard the senate 
as appointed by the king, or as composed of decurions, officers 



108 CONSTITUTION OF HOME. [CH. X. 

of the houses, or as chosen by the houses, its composition would 
be substantially the same with what Niebuhr ascribes to the 
comitia curiata : so that there must have been two bodies com- 
posed of the same, or nearly the same persons, and appointed in 
the same, or nearly the same manner, yet exercising perfectly 
different functions in governing the same community ; an ab- 
surdity which never could have been established, or have grown 
up in any scheme of administration.* 

In the comitia curiata the patrons of the greater houses (ma- 
jorum gentium) had precedence over those of the lesser (mino- 
rum gentium), possessing the exclusive right to hold certain 
offices, as that of pontiffs, which gave them the whole super- 
intendence of religious rites, though each tribe had a priest 
(jlamen) of its own, each having deities of its own. The two 
greater tribes had also twenty feciales, or heralds, one for each 
curia, and these acted as ambassadors on all occasions. They 
had two criminal judges, from whose decisions, however, there 
lay an appeal to the comitia or assembly of the curiae, as there 
did from the king's decision in civil, though not in criminal 
causes. There was thus, as it were, an aristocracy within an 
aristocracy ; all the patricians being privileged as contradistin- 
guished from the plebeians, but two of the patrician tribes 
(Ramnes and Tities) having privileges to the exclusion of the 
third (Luceres). 

The patricians assembled in the comitia curiata had so far 
legislative authority that all laws were passed by them, but on 
the proposal of the senate ; and the senate could only sanction, 
after discussion, measures proposed by the king, without the 
power of originating any. In like manner, and on the same 
proposal of the king first, and then of the senate, all officers, civil 
and military, were appointed in the comitia curiata ; which like- 
wise decided on peace and war in the same way, the decisions 
of the senate being only final on administrative questions. The 
king himself was elected by the comitia curiata, and on being 
elected was armed with the supreme power (imperium) by a 
separate law of the same body. This course was pursued in the 

* Niebuhr's own doctrine respecting the senate makes it composed in precisely the 
same way in which he imagines the comitia curiata to have been, of a senator for each 
decuria (I. 21), so that each senator must have acted in two capacities; a refinement, 
as well as an anomaly, hardly conceivable in a rude community. 



CH. X.] COMITIA CUR1ATA EQUITES. 109 

case of the first four or five kings, but not in that of Servius 
Tullius, who, making the commons believe that Tarquin had 
survived his wounds, and ingratiating himself by paying their 
debts, first ruled for some days in Tarquin' s name, and then 
obtained their approbation to his succeeding ; but he then pro- 
cured a law to be made giving him the supreme power.* This 
singular proceeding of first electing the chief magistrate, and 
then by another act giving him his power, was often adopted in 
the choice of consuls, who, being elected by the centuries, were 
endowed with authority by the curiae. But it was more strange 
in the earlier times, when both the election and the arming with 
power were performed, though by separate acts, yet by the same 
body. The imperium of both king and consul ceased on entering 
the city ; out of the city they were absolute. The king first, 
afterwards the consuls, convoked the comitia curiata, through the 
officers (lictors) of the curiae, each having its own. 

The two tribes, or twenty curiae of the greater houses, were 
not the only aristocracy within an aristocracy in this singular 
frame of government. There was a select body, probably dis- 
tinguished from the rest originally by their greater wealth, and 
thus enabled to serve on horseback, while the others were foot 
soldiers. They were accordingly called Equites, or horsemen, 
and we have given them the name of knights. They at first 
consisted of three centuries or hundreds, one in each tribe, and 
the elder Tarquin added a second century to each of the original 
centuries, and then, according to some indistinct accounts, pro- 
ceeded to double the number of the whole. Servius added 
twelve centuries, or, as some say, only six, assuming there had 
been twelve before ; for all are agreed that there were finally 
eighteen. A doubt may be raised whether or not the three 
subordinate centuries instituted by Tarquin were taken from the 
plebeians ; but there can be no doubt that the twelve new cen- 
turies of Servius Tullius were formed of the noblest and wealthiest 
citizens of the plebeian order. It has been held by Niebuhr and 

* Livy and others have fallen into a manifest error in supposing that Servius was 
the favourite of the senate, and chosen by that body. The patricians hated him so 
much, and he was so sensible of it, that Paullus (the jurisconsult) has related an 
instance of the precautions he took against them : he made them all inhabit a particular 
quarter of the town (thence called Vicus Patricius), because it lay so exposed to his 
force on the high ground above, that he could easily crush them if they were found 
plotting against him. 



110 CONSTITUTION OF HOME. [CH. X. 

others that when the plebeian order became numerous, and 
formed the infantry of the army, all the patricians had a right to 
serve on horseback ; and they thus consider equites and patri- 
cians as synonymous, contrary, it must be admitted, to the whole 
current of classical authority, and to all that seems most esta- 
blished in the maxims of the Roman government, as well as the 
habitual forms of expression most familiar to classical students. 
It may suffice to cite the common expressions of ' equestrian order,' 
* equestrian dignity,' ( equestrian census,' and to mention the 
common saying that this order was the breeding-ground of the 
senate {seminar 'turn senatus) — senators being deemed irregularly 
chosen, if not from such patrician or such plebeian office-bearers 
as were also of equestrian rank. The officer who commanded the 
Equites (Tribunus Celerum) held a high rank under the kings, 
and was employed to convoke the curiae, and preside at their 
comitia. Under the republic he was called master of the horse 
(magister equitum), but was only an occasional officer, appointed 
by the Dictator, of whom we shall presently speak. 

A very important change was introduced by Servius. Sprung 
himself from an humble, probably a servile origin,* owing his 
promotion to the favour of the commons, whom he always courted, 
and viewed most jealously by the patricians, whom he despised 
and controlled, he appears to have thought that the time was 
come when the growth of the plebeian body and the undue 
authority, oppressively exercised, of the patricians, rendered a 
new arrangement of the political power both safe to attempt, and 
expedient if successfully pursued. He began by passing many 
laws in the comitia curiata for regulating the rights of parties in 
respect of contracts, and of injuries and wrongs ; probably for 
defining the rights of citizens and of the two orders. He also 
transferred from the kings to judges the jurisdiction in private 
causes. He either divided more of the public lands among the 
commons, or gave them a better title to what they already held ; 
and he is even said to have abolished the practice both of pledg- 
ing and imprisoning the person for debt. Finally, he raised 
both the freed-men and slaves to some consideration in the com- 
munity, enrolling the former among the lowest class of citizens 
in the distribution which we are presently to consider, and giv- 

* He is supposed to have been a natural son of Tarquin by a*slave. Cic. de Rep., 
II., 21, mentions this tradition. 






CH. X.J REFORMS OF SERVIUS. Ill 

ing the latter a yearly religious festival (compitalia) , during which 
they were treated as free. Next, in order to balance the thirty 
curiae, he distributed the commons into thirty tribes — four city, 
and twenty- six country tribes ; at the head of each he appointed 
a tribune ; and under his presidency the tribe met for the levy- 
ing of its share of the taxes and raising its quota of men to the 
army. This arrangement with the power of meeting could not 
fail greatly to increase the weight of the commons, as well as to 
afford them the means of acting in concert, and thus extending 
their power much further. But this was not the whole of 
Servius's reforms; and it is remarkable that the spirit of his 
legislation gave no power to the multitude without at the same 
time, and in the same proportion, providing a safeguard against 
its abuse, and a security against its exceeding the bounds which 
he deemed safe for the State. He added twelve centuries of 
equites to the six already existing of the patricians (or six to the 
twelve), and these new equites were all plebeians of wealth. He 
then divided the whole people,* that is, the two orders, patrician 
and plebeian, into five classes, into which persons were enrolled 
without any regard to their rank or dignity, but merely with a 
view to their wealth, according to which all were taxed to the 
revenue ; and each class consisted of so many centuries of house- 
keepers. The property of the first class was about 320/. t of 
our money, or 400/. according to another calculation, and of the 
last the tenth of this sum ; and to a sixth division belonged 
those who had less than this, and those who had no property at 
all, and who were called proletarii and capite censi. The whole 
people by centuries were to assemble in comitia ; but the centu- 
ries, thus classified according to their property, were not com- 
posed numerically of so many hundreds, for this would have 
given the great majority to the votes of the poorer classes. The 
first class consisted of nearly as many centuries as all the other 

* People (populus) in the early times, and indeed until the distinctions between 
patrician and plebeian were greatly diminished, means properly the former order, that 
is, the original free and native Romans and their descendants, that is, the three tribes of 
the houses. When the word, therefore, is used in a larger sense it is necessary to give 
notice. 

f Nothing is less certain than the old computation of money ; for undoubtedly if we 
reckon 1 00,000 asses (the highest census) at so many pounds of copper or brass, a 
fortune would be indicated far beyond what can have been fixed. See, however, Nieb., 
vol. i., pp. 448-458, Transl. 



112 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. X- 

four together : it contained eighty centuries, and an additional 
one of artisans for constructing military machines ; while the 
second, third, and fourth contained twenty each, and the fifth 
thirty. Then the eighteen centuries of equites, belonging to the 
higher or wealthier descriptions, and separated from the whole 
people before their distribution into classes, voted with the first 
class, which may be said to have had ninety -nine centuries, 
while all the other four classes numbered only ninety ; and only 
ninety-five or ninety-six, even if two centuries of military me- 
chanics and the centuries below the classes be reckoned.* Now, 
as the votes were taken by centuries in the assembly, each 
century voting by a majority of its members and reckoning as 
one vote, this arrangement gave the decided majority to the 
wealthier class against the more numerous ; the intention of 
Servius being that which Cicero says ought ever to be carefully 
maintained in a commonwealth, preventing the greatest influence 
being exercised by merely the greatest numbers : " Ne plurium 
valeant plurimi." (De Rep., II. 21.) The addition of the cen- 
tury called Ni quis scivit is remarkable ; it was in order that any 
one might vote who had omitted to vote in his own, as Festus 
says, " Ne quis civis suffragii jure privaretur." Both Cicero 
and Livy praise this whole system, and, as it seems, justly, for 
at once giving each citizen a voice, and yet apportioning his 
influence to the respectability of his station, f The four inferior 
classes could only be called on to decide in the event, which 

* Five tribes were added to ihe thirty of the Luceres in later times, but the whole 
numbers never exceed thirty-five. At one time when Porsenna had conquered Rome, 
and she had lost all the left bank of the river, ten tribes were taken away, and one having 
been added, this explains the passage of Livy, in which the number is said to be only 
twenty-one. This ingenious and satisfactory explanation is Niebuhr's, to whom we 
also owe the emendation and interpretation of the passage in Cicero de Rep., II. 22, 
from which the account in the text is taken. But the numbers in Cicero, if we adopt 
Niebuhr's supposition, are still not reconcileable to the total of one hundred and ninety- 
throe, always represented as the number of the centuries; for he speaks of ninety-six as 
the remaining centuries, after deducting those of the first class, and Angelo Mai can 
only make the total one hundred and ninety-three, by making the remainder ninety- 
five. Cicero, if the passage is not corrupted, seems plainly to have held that eight 
from the inferior classes must join the eighty-nine of the first to give a majority, and to 
have supposed that the equites had only six votes — and then it is difficult to see how he 
gets his sum of eighty-nine. 

f Cic. De Rep., II., 22: — " Neque excluderetur suffragiis (reliqua multitudo) ne 
superbum esset; nee valeret minus, ne esset periculosum."' Livy, I., 43 : — " Gradus 
facti ut neque exclusus quisquam suffragio videretur, et vis omnis penes primores 
civ ilatis esset."' 






CH. X.] SERVIUS'S REFORMS. 113 

hardly ever happened, of the centuries in the first class differing. 
For an uneducated, and indeed barbarous people, there seemed 
no better arrangement than one which should thus recognize 
each man's right to vote, but only make the votes of the multi- 
tude decide in case there was a difference of opinion among the 
upper classes. It is further to be noted that the people were 
distributed in the centuries according to their age ; each class 
having an equal number of elders and younger men, or men 
under forty-five and above that age. So that the latter, though 
considerably fewer in number in each century, yet forming cen- 
turies, and the vote being by centuries, had an equal voice with 
the young men.* Thus the voices of five elderly persons had 
as much weight as those of nine younger ones. 

The distribution into centuries, and the account taken of ages, 
numbers, and property, was made the foundation both of the 
taxes and of the military service. The army was formed of the 
people by centuries. The seniores, or elder centuries, remained 
in the city as a kind of reserve, and, unless in case of necessity, 
the younger (juniores) alone took the field. Every one was 
obliged to arm himself, as well as to pay taxes (tributa) accord- 
ing to his fortune, or class ; and those under the fifth class were 
not called upon to serve excepting in cases of urgent necessity, f 

The comitia centuriata being established by Servius, they 
appear very soon, if not at once, to have come for some purposes 
into the place of the comitia curiata. If the kingly government 
had been peaceably continued the choice of the king would have 
been vested in them, on the proposition of the seriate; as they 
afterwards chose the consuls and all the great patrician magis- 
trates, except the dictator, master of the horse, and interrex. 
They had legislative power likewise, but could only entertain 
questions submitted to them by the senate ; and the assent of the 
comitia curiata was likewise necessary to give their decision the 
force of law. The effect, too, of long usage, as well as of the patri- 
cian influence, was such that very few legislative measures were 
for many years brought before the comitia centuriata, the senate 

* The population returns of 1831 give the proportion of ages upon 10,000,000 of 
males— from 15 to 39 years old, 3,608,000— from 40 to 69, 2,049,000, or as 9 to 5 ; 
and if all above 69 be added, the proportion is still as 18 to 11. 

f Niebuhr supposes that those who had some property, but under the census of the 
fifth class, were the accensi, who followed the army unarmed, and took the places and 
armour of those killed in battle. 

PART II. I 



114 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. X. 

and the curiata continuing in most cases to make the law. The 
constitution of Servius being introduced towards the end of the 
second century, it was not till the laws of the twelve tables, and 
the adoption of an uniform system of jurisprudence, a hundred 
years later, that the general legislative power became regularly 
vested in the comitia centuriata. 

That there is much of a fabulous description in the commonly 
received history of Servius no one now doubts. The whole 
account of the conspiracy against him, his murder, the conduct 
of his daughter, and of Tarquin, who dethroned and succeeded 
him, is so full of gross improbability and contradictions that it 
has generally been given up as the fiction of the ear]y poets, 
working upon some tradition of facts which it is now impossible 
to sift from their inventions. But that Servius really made the 
whole, or the greater number, of the changes in the constitution 
which have been ascribed to him seems to be admitted. He 
has, however, like our Alfred, and like Charlemagne in France, 
become the person to whom every early arrangement is traced ; 
whatever the Romans obtained of free and popular institutions 
was supposed to be a revival of his laws which Tarquin had abro- 
gated; and things which it cannot be pretended that he ever 
did, he is fancied to have intended doing, as resigning the crown, 
and giving the supreme power to two consuls.* Another theory, 
but resting on far better foundations, represents him to have 
taken the Greek forms of government as his model in the distribu- 
tion of political power. Cicero expressly describes him as having 
been thoroughly versed in the Greek customs, under the instruc- 
tion of the elder Tarquin, his protector, who is known to have been 
the son of a Greek, f And there is a striking resemblance of 
his reforms to those of Solon, a century and a half before ; espe- 
cially in his abolition of servitude for debt, his distributing the 
citizens into classes according to their property, his apportioning 
the military services and taxation to the census, and his giving 
all citizens, including clients, J a vote in the assembly. The like- 
ness however ends here ; for Solon's constitution was essentially 
democratic from the votes being given by individuals and not by 

* Niebuhr himself adopts some of these traditions. 

f Cic. de R. P., ii. 20. 

X It is supposed that Solon's fourth or lowest class was chiefly composed of the serfs 
or cultivators, whose name (Thetes) it bore, and who stood to the Eupatridae, or noble 
families, in the relation of clients to patrons. 



CH. X.] TARQUIN THE PROUD. 1 1 5 

classes ; and though the lower orders were excluded from all 
offices, and the two next from the higher, yet the judicial power 
was given to the whole body, and given by lot; whereas 
the constitution of Servius,, after all the additions which he 
made to the power of the commons, additions which wore an 
aspect much larger than their real substance, remained essentially 
aristocratic as before, until those changes introduced by him 
enabled the commons in the course of time to obtain a really 
democratic government. 

The great favour which Servius naturally and justly enjoyed, 
with the plebeians, was met by hatred equally sincere, but not 
so openly displayed, on the part of the patricians. There seems 
no reason to doubt that they joined in a conspiracy against him, 
which ended in his dethronement, probably his murder, and in 
placing Tarquin, the son of his predecessor, upon the throne. 
Although the legends and songs, and after them the historians, 
have without doubt exaggerated the vices of his reign, as well 
as the crimes by which he began it, it is certain that he exercised 
great tyranny, and that he was enabled by the aid of the patri- 
cians to undo nearly all that Servius had done for the commons. 
The meetings of the tribes were no longer held ; the centuries 
were only kept up with the view to taxation and the army ; the 
judicial power was restored to the crown ; and the law which 
prevented pledging or seizing the debtor's person was repealed, 
if indeed such a law had ever been enacted.* The patricians, 
however, suffered very speedily for their profligate support of 
the tyrant, and their employment of his power to crush the com- 
mons. All authorities represent him as having been made king 
without any form of election, and certainly he was not chosen by 
the comitia centuriata. The probability, however, is that his 
election was sanctioned either by the senate or the comitia 
curiata ; for it is hardly to be supposed that he should have 
omitted a confirmation so essential to his title, when he could so 
easily obtain it from his partizans. But the patricians did not 
expect him to surround himself with a body-guard, and by the 
power which this gave him to tyrannize over themselves still 
more intolerably than he permitted them to domineer over the 
people. By charges of conspiracy, and by all the other wonted 

* It will presently be shown how great a share the law of debtor and creditor contri- 
buted to the power of the patricians. 

i 2 



116 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. X. 

acts of tyrants, he was enabled to banish or put to death such as 
threatened to oppose him, or such as had wealth which he desired 
to confiscate. He seldom assembled the senate, and hardly ever 
the curiae ; he made peace or war, and treaties with neighbour- 
ing towns, of his own mere authority ; and in all respects 
governed as an absolute prince. His capacity appears to have 
been of a high order ; and it is clear that he greatly extended 
the dominions of the city, both by conquests, and by colonies 
settled in order more easily to retain them, according to the Roman 
policy in all ages. He was enabled to place Rome at the head 
of the Latin league by his success over several of the Latin 
states,* and his intrigues with others. His power at home was 
increased by these foreign operations, and by the wealth which 
he thus obtained ; but those who had set him up joined on the 
first favourable opportunity to pull him down. 

During his absence at the siege of Ardea, a town on the coast, 
an insurrection broke out, said to have been occasioned by the 
licentious conduct of his son towards a Roman matron ; the patri- 
cians joined its leader, Junius Brutus, and the people gladly 
availed themselves of the opportunity to be revenged on him 
whose tyranny had commenced with oppressing them. The Tar- 
quins were expelled ; and all ranks being disgusted with a form of 
government under which all had alike suffered, it was resolved 
that the chief magistrate should thenceforward be elected yearly, 
and not for life ; and, as a further security against usurpation, 
that two should be chosen with equal powers. These were 
called consuls, and being named by the popular assembly, the 
comitia centuriata, they were armed with the supreme power 
(imperium) as the kings had been, by a decree of the curiae. 
The revolution was affected with as little change as possible in 
the other parts of the government ; and it was at first marked 
with great moderation towards the exiled family. The senate, 
which Tarquin had by his proscriptions reduced to a small num- 
ber, was completed to 300, and it appears to have assumed the 
chief direction of affairs. They resolved to deliver up all Tar- 
quin's personal property, and allow him to sell his lands, in the 
hope that he would attempt nothing against the republic. The 
course upon which he entered, of intrigues and plots for his 
restoration, and the wars which he excited with this view among 
* Cic. de R. P., ii. 21. 



CH. X.] ARISTOCRATIC REPUBLIC FORMED. 117 

the neighbouring states, put an end to all such kindly dispositions ; 
and the senate found it necessary to prepare for their defence by 
enlisting the commonalty still more completely in their cause. 
The goods of the Princes were given up to the people as plunder, 
and their lands were distributed among them. The patricians 
now found it necessary to secure the support of the other order, 
by giving up the greater portion of their domains; and seven 
jugera (rather more than four acres and a quarter) were allotted 
to each plebeian. The laws of Servius were restored ; a solemn 
determination, sanctified by oaths, and fenced by the outlawry 
of all who should contravene,* was taken never more to suffer 
regal authority ; but beyond this, and giving an appeal to the 
plebeians from the criminal jurisdiction of the consuls, similar to 
that which the patricians always had from the decision of the 
king and judges, no material change in the polity of the state 
appears to have been introduced. The government continued 
to be aristocratic under the consuls, as it had been under the 
kings, with only the additional security to the patrician power, 
which was obtained from the choice of the executive magistrates 
being vested in bodies, over whom the aristocracy had the most 
complete influence, and from the powers of these magistrates 
being limited to a year's duration. 

The legendary history of Rome has added many fictions to 
the true account of this revolution, both in what regards its 
immediate cause, the manner of effecting it, the subsequent 
conduct of those engaged in it, and the events of the war 
to which it gave rise. What foundation there may be for 
the story of Lucretia, the feigned idiotcy of Brutus, the con- 
spiracy and the death of his sons or nephews, the assassination in 
Porsenna's tent, and Scsevola's devotion, the voluntary abandon- 
ment by Porsenna of his conquest, the defence of the bridge by 
Codes — it is in vain now to inquire. That these things never 
could have happened as they are described, and that some of 
them are wholly inconsistent with dates f and facts, all authorities 
seem now to be agreed. We shall most safely read the Roman 
history of those ages if we confine ourselves to the general 
results; and it is a somewhat remarkable circumstance that 

* Whoever should attempt to obtain regal authority, might be put to death without 
trial. 

f Brutus, a child at Tarquin's accession, is represented as having a son grown up 
twenty-five years after. 



118 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. X* 

modern times have furnished instances by no means unlike that 
of the Roman revolution. The conduct of the senate respecting 
the royal family reminds us of the early stage of the French 
revolution ; and the alteration which the intrigues and wars of 
the Tarquins occasioned in their treatment by the Romans 
somewhat resembles the changes which the first invasion of 
France by the Allies and the Bourbon Princes occasioned at 
Paris. Had the French stopped at confiscation of the emigrant 
property, the parallel would have been complete. The alarm 
excited by the invasion of France afforded no justification, nor 
even any palliation, of the atrocities for which it was made the 
pretext ; and though the fact of the republican party being the 
minority, greatly overmatched by the royalists, and generally by 
those averse to a commonwealth in every part of France, may 
explain why the system of terror, with all its enormities, was 
resorted to, and may account for a course of wholesale change as 
well as cruelty, being pursued so opposite to the proceedings of 
the Roman patricians and plebeians, who seem to have been 
nearly unanimous in their opposition to kingly government, yet 
this fact affords no kind of vindication to those whose motives 
it illustrates. The treatment of the royal family in 1830 is con- 
sistent with the scope of these remarks ; and in one respect our 
own revolution of 1688 seems to resemble that of Rome : as 
little was done as appeared possible in changing the system or 
even the dynasty ; and all the measures adopted had for their 
aim the restoration of the former constitution, and the counter- 
action of recent encroachments. 



CH. XI.] 119 



CHAPTER XI. 

CONSTITUTION OF ROME. 

(Continued.) 



Patrician power — 1. Patrons and Clients — Feudal resemblance — iErarii — Error of 
authors — Clients in Sparta, Crete, Thessaly, and Attica — 2. Monopoly of Offices — 
Senate — Conflicting accounts — Dionysius and Livy — Errors of authors — Censors — 
Choice of Senate — Practical checks to Censorial power — Senate's functions — Varia- 
tions in its power — Patres et Conscripti — Senate's influence — Dictators — Consuls — 
Praetors — Patrician oppressions — Public lands — Agrarian laws — Spurius Cassius — 
Licinian Rogations — Patrician creditors — Tribunes chosen — Their powers — Progress 
of popular power — Decline of Comitia Curiata — Rise of Tributa — Course of legis- 
lation — Double legislation — Anomalies — Solution of the paradox — Senatus Con- 
sulta and Plebiscita — Checks to the Tribunes — Superstitious rites — Laws of the 
Auspices — Senate's errors — Democracy established — Practical defects in the Govern- 
ment — Decemvirs. 

There were three great constituent parts of the power possessed 
by the patricians — the relation of patron and client — the exclu- 
sive possession of offices — and the structure of the senate ; and 
out of these arrangements arose in the fourth place their mono- 
poly of the public property in land, and their oppression of the 
plebeians. 

1. Although the relation of patron and client was at first 
established for the protection of the poor dependant, and was 
indeed a consequence of that poverty and dependance, yet it 
gave great power to the patricians, because it not only attached 
numbers of followers to each, but continued to influence the 
client, and make him subservient after his circumstances had 
become improved. The relation was of the closest nature. The 
client's existence might almost be said to merge in that of his 
patron. He could only sue and be sued in the patron's name, 
and the patron was bound to defend all his suits. The patron 
had jurisdiction over him, and in early times he had even the 
power of inflicting capital punishment upon him. Like husband 
and wife, by our laws, they could not be witnesses for or against 
each other. The courts of justice did not afford any protection 
to the client against injuries offered by his patron ; the religious 
sense of the sacred duty which bound the latter was accounted 



120 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. XI. 

sufficient to restrain all excesses, but it appears to have been the 
only restraint. One of the oldest Roman laws, of which any 
fragment remains, declared the patron who injured his client a 
sacrifice to the gods, that is, condemned him to capital punish- 
ment, probably to be inflicted by the pontiff.* The existence 
of the patron's rights for so many ages, without any abuse, and 
of the client's subordination, is only one of the innumerable 
instances which the history of every constitution affords of the 
consolidating, the counteracting, and the healing effects produced 
by manners and habits upon positive institutions and their opera- 
tion. This relation was hereditary on both sides ; the client's 
children being under the protection of and bound by allegiance 
to the patron and his representative, that is, the hereditary head 
of the family. The patron, whose landed property, or whose 
possession of the public land was considerable, generally gave 
his clients portions to cultivate ; they paid in all probability a 
portion of the produce ; but the grant was always resumable at 
pleasure. In any extraordinary necessity of the patron, as the 
expenses of a public office, the portioning a daughter, the ran- 
som of himself or his sons if taken in war, the being condemned 
to pay damages in a civil or fines in a criminal proceeding, the 
client, if he could afford it, bore a part in his patron's aid, with 
the gentiles or members of the same house. t The clients were 
often able to realize property to a considerable amount; for 
while those in the country farmed the patron's land, those in 
the towns carried on the trades and practised the mechanical 
arts, from which patricians were at all times excluded by their 
dignity, and plebeians in the earlier period by the warlike habits 
of the nation, and the common feeling of antiquity, which con- 
nected citizenship with property in land ; and when a client died 
without making his will the patron was his universal heir. — It is 

* " Sei Patronos clienti fraudem faxit sacer estod." This is "generally considered 
one of the laws of the twelve tables; but P. Merula has maintained that it was a law 
of Romulus, that is, one of the most ancient of the laws, which, with the modern ones, 
and those brought from Greece, were formed into the twelve tables. His chief argu- 
ments rest on an ancient MS. of Servius (Ad JEn. vi. 609), where the law is ascribed to 
Romulus and the twelve tables, the common editions giving it to the twelve tables 
only, and on Calpurnius Piso, who wrote in the time of Trajan. — De Legg. Rom. cap. ii. 

f The distinction between house and family must always be carefully be kept in 
view. In this account of the Roman constitution, family always means the persons 
related to each other, as in the modern sense ; house means the gens, or clan, the rela- 
tionship of the members of which could not be traced. 



CH. XI.] PATRONS AND CLIENTS. 121 

not surprising that with so many points of resemblance to the 
feudal relation of lord and vassal, authors should have traced the 
latter to the Roman times ; but the speculation seems groundless, 
for the very essence of the feudal relation was the holding land 
under a lord, and owing certain duties in respect of that land ; 
whereas the clientela and the grant of land had not any necessary 
connexion, although they might be combined. The clients are 
represented by most authors as having voted with their patrons 
in the comitia curiata, at least after the plebeians became power- 
ful, and endeavoured to carry measures in those assemblies. 
But there seems no reason to believe that they ever voted except 
in the comitia centuriata.* Slaves set free by their master were 
understood to become his clients, and probably did so become at 
all times ; but Servius is said to have provided for this by a posi- 
tive law, intended as some compensation to the patricians for 
the admission of freedmen to votes in the assemblies of the 
centuries, f 

The number of clients which the more wealthy patricians had 
is represented as very large. When Attus Clausus, founder of 
the Claudian family, removed from the Sabine territory to Rome, 
he was followed by 5,000 persons dependent upon his family ; 
and when the Fabian family left Rome, where they had for six 
years filled the consulate, they carried with them 4,000 clients to 
Etruria, where they were all soon after destroyed. But it became 
in process of time usual for whole towns and districts to place 
themselves under the protection of patricians, and thus become 

* Niebuhr (I., 21) has laid it down, with a dogmatism somewhat extraordinary 
upon such a subject, that " there cannot be the least doubt that the clients lived in 
vassalage, cultivating the lands of the Equites." 

f Dionysius states very positively the admission of freedmen to the rights of citizens 
by Servius ; but Niebuhr holds that this was impossible, because their admission is 
represented as dating from the discovery of the Tarquin conspiracy by a slave, and his 
manumission in consequence; and also because freed men only obtained the right of voting 
in the tribes two centuries later, when Appius Claudius was censor. The facts on 
which these two reasons of Niebuhr rest appear to be with difficulty reconciled. It is, 
however, possible that Servius enrolled the freedmen with the lowest class, which 
would give them no right of voting. So far as these rights of citizenship were conferred 
by enrolment in the centuries, the freedmen became aerarii. It is an error to suppose 
that the term cerarii included only the accensi, proletarii, and capete censi : all whose 
property did not consist in land were cerarii, whatever its amount might be, and they 
might be enrolled and taxed in one or other of the higher classes, although not entitled to 
bear arms. The citizens of other states who shared in the franchise of Rome, for example 
the citizens of Caere, were enrolled among the cerarii. 



122 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. XI. 

their clients. This must have greatly increased the power of 
those individuals, and the influence of their order.* 

The relation of patron and client has been traced not only to 
the other Italian tribes, as the Sabines, Latins, Etruscans, but to 
the Greek commonwealths. The Helots were only a tribe or 
caste of cultivators, and no individual landowner had any pro- 
perty in them, although they were attached to the soil ; and they 
were held in a state of abject slavery by the government. A 
caste of the same description existed in Crete, called the Menoites. 
But in Thessaly the penestce more nearly resembled the Roman 
clients ; for they were attached to particular families ; though 
their treatment appears to have been arbitrary and cruel. The 
Athenian Thetes, though much more free, and more mildly 
treated, were in like manner attached to the Eupatridae, or noble 
families, cultivated their lands, and paid in return a sixth of the 
produce, their persons being liable to seizure for any default. 
They were probably admitted to the rights of citizens by Solon, 
his fourth class being called by the same name. In all these 
instances the subject-caste appears to have been the original 
natives of the country, reduced by conquest to a subordinate 
condition ; and it is highly probable that the greater number of 
the Roman clients originally belonged to conquered tribes. But 
no distinction whatever was made between the different kinds of 
client, and the foreigner stood upon the same footing as the 
native, although he was generally of more independent fortune, 
only seeking protection in consequence of the disabilities under 
which he lay as an alien. The importance of this class of clients, 
together with the value of the whole body to their patrons in 
their contests with the plebeians, no doubt tended to secure 
them good treatment in times when the force of the religious 

* There cannot be a greater mistake than that which yet has been extremely pre- 
valent, of confounding the plebeians with the clients. Almost all writers have been 
led into the error by the passage in Dionysius, that Romulus placed the commons 
under the protection of the patricians as clients. Plutarch and others, with almost all 
the commentators, and even, which is most singular, the jurisconsults, have from 
thence considered the clients as constituting the plebeian body, or at least as the origin 
of that body. Livy clearly shows the difference in various passages, as ii. 64, iii. 14. 
In these, especially the first, the clients are expressly placed in contradistinction to the 
plebeians. How any one who was acquainted with the controversy between the patri- 
cians and the plebeians, and the oppressions of the former, could ever fall into such an 
error seems incomprehensible. How, for instance, could the patron oppress his client 
as a creditor when they had not even a right of action against one another ? 



CH. XI.] MONOPOLY OF OFFICES. 123 

obligation may be supposed to have proved less effectual. Freed- 
men and their descendants, foreigners, and provincial towns, 
formed in the later periods of the commonwealth the only body 
of clients. 

2. All the offices, the power of which extended over the 
whole nation, were at first filled by the patricians, and the office- 
bearers were named either directly or substantially by them. 
Some doubt prevails as to the manner of the election ; but it is 
probable that in the earlier ages the senate sometimes, and some- 
times the curia? elected. As long as either the one or the other 
chose, the appointment was directly in the patricians ; but even 
after the centuries came to elect, the choice substantially re- 
mained in the hands of the wealthier class, that is, of the patri- 
cians,, by means of their own votes and the votes of their clients ; 
and the offices were still not tenable by plebeians. The greatest 
struggle of the two orders was accordingly upon this latter 
point ; and as the people's power increased they by degrees ob- 
tained admission to all the magistracies. In proportion as they 
gained these important points, the government became less aris- 
tocratic, and at length assumed a democratic form, with scarcely 
more aristocratic admixture than seems unavoidably to flow from 
the natural tendencies of society, what we have termed the 
Natural Aristocracy. There was still, however, and to the last, 
one strong hold from which the patricians never were entirely 
driven — one body into which the plebeians never obtained free 
admission, except through official titles* — that was indeed the 
most important of all the bodies in the state, the senate itself; 
and as this constituted the earliest and the most powerful sup- 
port of the patrician influence, it is necessary to examine its 
structure with particular attention. 

The senate was a body originally of a hundred chief men of 
the houses (gentes) of the Ramnes tribe, in whom were vested 
some of the most important functions of government. When 
the Tities were added as a second tribe, another hundred were 
added to the senate ; and a third hundred from the Luceres, as 
we have seen, were added a considerable time after the forma- 
tion of that tribe. f A great obscurity, as might be expected, 

* There is reason to think that some plebeians were admitted to fill up the numbers 
of the senate in the earliest age of the republic. 

f Niebuhr, i. 21, has a very unaccountable theory respecting the composition of the 
senate. He supposes the Luceres to have been the first senators, because they had the 



124 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [cil. XI. 

hangs over the origin of this celebrated council; but a much 
greater diversity than could have been supposed possible exists 
among the accounts which have reached us of its construction.* 
That only patricians were at first capable of sitting in it, and 
that its number of 300 continued down to a comparatively recent 
period, the seventh century of the city, are undisputed facts ; 
that the senators, in what way soever appointed, held their places 
for life, or until removed for misconduct, or loss of qualification 
{census), is equally certain; that a certain age, and in later 
times a certain fortune, were required to qualify a patrician for 
the place, is alike undeniable : but the precise age and fortune 
are matters of controversy, probably because they were at first 
ill defined, and may afterwards have varied at different periods ; 
and there are conflicting accounts of the manner in which the 
senators were chosen. On these accounts opposite theories have 
been founded, and it does not appear that the recent inquiries of 
Niebuhr and his followers have led to a result upon which it 
would be safe to rely. 

The two conflicting accounts are those of Dionysius and of 
Livy ; for Festus, who wrote in the third century of our sera, 
and took his materials from Verrius Flaccus, a writer in the 
Augustan age, may be supposed to have derived, through Verrius, 
his authority from Livy or from those writers whom Livy had 
consulted ; or Livy and Verrius may both have written upon 
the prevailing traditions of their times. Dionysius describes the 
nomination as an election,f and an election of a somewhat com- 
plicated kind. Each tribe, he says, were desired to choose three 
(aipsTc&xi), then each curia to select three more (i<7nXs|ai), 
and adding the ninety supplied by the curiae (7r%oyjci%iaa,vTo) to 
the nine appointed by the tribes (aTro^e^e/ji), Romulus placed 
over the whole as their chief, or leader (^ys/xwv), Princeps 

religious rites under their care, and the Ramnes (Latins) to have heen afterwards ad- 
mitted, and last of all the Tities (Sabines), and that these, and not the Luceres. were 
admitted by Tarquin the Elder. This seems wholly inconsistent with the ascendant 
of the Sabines, and afterwards of the Latines and Sabines united. Nor can it possibly 
be conceived, that, when the Luceres did not even form a tribe, they alone should have 
composed the senate. 

* The subject of the choosing of the Roman senate is fully discussed by many of 
the learned antiquaries and jurisconsults of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. 
Magaragino, De Senatu, cap. xiv ; P. Manutius, De Legg. Rom. cap. iv. ; F. Hotto- 
matinus, De Senafu, ii. 1 ; Car. Sigonius, De Art. Jure. Civ. Rom. ii. 2. 

j- Dion. i. 12. 






CH. xi.] senate's structure. 125 

Senatus, the one "whom he had himself appointed as his lieu- 
tenant when absent from the city. Livy and Festus, after Verrius, 
affirm that the senators were chosen originally by the kings and 
afterwards by the consuls (Festus adds, erroneously, by the mili- 
tary tribunes), who both appointed them in the first instance, and 
filled up vacancies.* The election described by Dionysius is im- 
probable, because so great a refinement in that rude age can 
hardly be conceived possible. But the theory of some late writers 
is much more ^improbable, because they ascribe a still greater 
refinement to the institution. They suppose the tribe divided 
into ten curiae, or bodies of ten houses (gentes) each, for general 
purposes, but they say that there was another division into decurise, 
each consisting of parts of several gentes, and a division merely for 
the purpose of electing a senator. Nothing certainly can be more 
improbable than this refinement.* Niebuhr thinks that the de- 
curio, or head of each gens, was, by virtue of his office, a senator ; 
but it does not appear what constituted a head of a gens, or 
indeed that such a title was recognised at all. It seems upon the 
whole most reasonable to conclude that the king appointed the 
senators, and afterwards the consuls, not only because we thus at 
once adopt the account of the Roman historians, but because such 
a constitution of the body is much less refined than an elective 
one, and because it coincides with the subsequent nomination of 
senators by an executive magistrate, the censor. If the patrician 
body had possessed the elective power ascribed to them by those 
who have followed Dionysius, it is not easy to conceive that they 
should have abandoned it altogether, when by the expulsion of 
the kings their influence became more predominant. The passage 

* Livy, i. 8, says, " Centum creat senatores " — (i. e. Romulus) ; and this might 
apply to the creation of the' office, without showing that the choice was made by the 
king himself. But when he states that Brutus filled up the deficiencies occasioned by 
Tarquinius Superbus (ii. 1), he expressly says, " primoribus equestris gradus lectis 
explevit." In the speech which he makes for Coriolanus (iv. 4), we find the words, 
" ab regibus lecti aut post reges exactos jussu populi." The jussu populi must refer to 
offices conferred by the curiae and the centuries (it is for the present purpose immaterial 
which), and that by means of such offices the eligibility into the senate was obtained. 
The account of Festus is much more distinct — " Ut reges sibiligebant sublegebantque 
ita post exactos eos Consules quoque et tribuni militum consulari potestate legebant." 
This, he says, continued until by the Lex Ovinia the choice was given to the censors. 
This law is nowhere mentioned but by Festus ; and commentators and jurisconsults 
have doubted its existence. — (J. Zamoscii de Stu. Bom. i. 3; ap. Grcev. i. 1074.) 
Livy alone makes Brutus fill up the vacancies occasioned by Tarquin ; Dionysius, 
Plutarch, and Festus all ascribe this to Valerius, his colleague, 

f Gottling — History of the Roman Government. 



126 CONSTITUTION OF HOME. [CH. XI. 

of Cicero (Or. pro Sext.), on which reliance has been placed, as 
showing that from the beginning of the republican government 
the people chose the senators ; and the expression used by Livy, 
that they were appointed by desire of the people, certainly can 
only refer to the power which all classes had of being appointed 
senators, when chosen to offices that qualified them.* 

The senators holding their office for life, it was only upon their 
death, or removal, that vacancies could arise. It was always 
required that senators should be persons of wealth, and of a cer- 
tain age, which according to Cicero was 30, though some have 
given a lower and some a higher age. Under the empire 3,500/., 
afterwards 7,000/., and then 10,000/., was the property required. 
If a person had become infamous, either by sentence of a court, 
or by notoriously bad life, he was removed ; so he was if he had 
fallen into bad circumstances, and had no longer the fortune 
required to support the dignity of the station. Holding any of the 
higher offices, those called curule, that is, consul, praetor, curule, 
aedile, or censor, and also the quaestorship, though not curule, gave 
a claim to be chosen senator. Whoever held those offices could 
attend the senate, both during his office and after he retired ; but 
though he had the right of speaking, he was not a senator, and 
probably had no vote. To be a senator it was necessary that 
the person should be chosen at first by the consuls, or dictators, 
afterwards by military tribunes with consular power, when these 
were appointed in place of consuls, as a concession to the plebeians, 
who sought a share in the consulship; and almost immediately 
after this struggle the register of the senate was made up by the 
censors, who were then chosen by the patricians, and endowed 
with great authority, both in order to relieve the consuls from 
duties incompatible with the conduct of military operations, and 

* " Diliguntur ab universo populo, aditusque in ilium summum ordinem omnium 
civium industria habuit." — {Pro Sext.) It never could be Cicero's intention to state 
that the whole people, plebeians as well as patricians, were both eligible, and electors 
of the senators, from the moment that the monarchy was overthrown. Still less is it 
conceivable that the plebeians had free admittance into the senate in the middle of the 
third century, while it was not till the beginning of the fourth (a.u.c. 308), when 
they obtained by Canuleius's law the right of marriage with patricians, and by Lici- 
nius's the right of being chosen consuls. Least of all is it conceivable that the whole 
body, patricians and plebeians, having had the right of election in the year 214, gave it 
up to the censor, a patrician officer, in 308, and without a struggle. As to the ex- 
pression of Livy, jussu populi — see last note but one. Possibly in the passage of 
Cicero ab should be read ex. — F. Hottom. ii. 1. 



CH. XI.] CENSORS CHOICE OF SENATE. 127 

in order to prevent the plebeians from profiting too much by the 
success which had attended their late struggle. The care of 
the revenue, the power of ascertaining not merely the numbers of 
the people but their fortunes, and of assessing them accordingly, 
the authority to stigmatize persons of bad conduct with infamy, 
the power of removing a citizen from one tribe to a lower, or a 
higher — that is, from a county to a city tribe, and vice versa — as 
the punishment or reward of his conduct, together with the general 
guardianship of the laws and superintendence of their due ^execu- 
tion, rendered this an office of the highest importance, and the 
censors immediately obtained the right of filling up the vacancies 
in the senate, as they had, by the nature of their office, the power 
of declaring a senator no longer qualified by fortune or character, 
and thus of removing him. The census was taken every five 
years, that period being called a lustrum ; and the office of censor 
was only created occasionally, in general at the end of every five 
years ; but very early after its creation (a.u.c. 321) its duration 
was confined to a year and a half, and only extended to three 
years, at a later period, in so far as any works undertaken by the 
censors remained to be completed. It does not appear that the 
power of removing and choosing senators was exercised oftener 
than once in five years ; and we are unable to ascertain that the 
other powers of degrading and promoting were exercised more 
frequently. The choice and removal of senators, however, was by 
no means left perfectly free to the censors, nor had it been in the 
breast of the consuls and dictators before the institution of the cen- 
sorial office. A solemn oath was taken to exercise all the powers 
of the office without favour or partiality, and this among a reli- 
gious people like the Romans must have had a great influence on 
the conduct of the magistrate. — Then a senator, if removed, was 
injured in his reputation; and though not rendered infamous, 
which only happened if he was also stigmatized (infamia notatus) 
by the censor, yet he must have suffered so much injury as to 
make the act one of great delicacy. The removal, too, could 
only be effectually made if both censors agreed ; for one censor 
might restore those whom his colleague had removed,* and a 
future censor, it is supposed, might restore a senator unjustly 

* On this, as on so many other points, much uncertainly prevails. Paul. Man., De 
Sen. Rom., cap. iii, — J. Zamoscius, De Sen. Rom., i., 19. 



128 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. XI. 

removed ; * certainly a future election to a curule office might 
enable a censor again to choose the party. The vacancies were 
thus not likely to be many on each occasion ; though seven or 
eight removals at once have been mentioned by authors. These, 
with the vacancies by death, would not much more than suffice to 
make room for the nomination of those who had held the five 
offices ; because these being annual must have supplied a con- 
siderable number of persons not already senators ; and it was held 
almost as injurious to be passed over as to be removed. f — Another 
check to the censorial power was provided by the risk which each 
censor ran of being himself treated harshly or unjustly had he 
thus treated others, and the indignation of the patrician body, had 
the discretion been abused as to them, and of the plebeians, had 
a capricious promotion or degradation been attempted in the 
tribes, must, have contracted the power in its general exercise; so 
that there is no difficulty in comprehending how the extraordinary 
functions of this office could be exercised for four centuries without 
encroaching materially upon all the other departments of the 
state, although its powers appear so extreme in theory that they 
who cannot understand the possibility of a balance in any govern- 
ment, or the modifications which in practice all power whatever 
must undergo, would at once pronounce the censorship incompati- 
ble with the existence of the Roman constitution, and that at the 
very least the senate must have been packed in the space of two 
lustrums. 

The commons (Plebs) never as such were directly eligible inlo 
the senate; but as they obtained the right to all the offices in 
succession, they became thus qualified, and when censors from 
their body were appointed, the plebeian holders of curule offices 
were chosen senators as well as the patrician. But the plebeian 
offices were of themselves, after the early part of the sixth cen- 
tury (a.u.c. 537.), considered as a qualification. Fabius Buteo 

* The Lex Clodia, which prohibited the mark of infamy (Censoria nota). required 
the concurrence of both Censors, as well as the formal accusation before them of the 
party; but Cicero regards this as having destroyed the office. Or. pro Sext. — Or. in 
Pisoxem. 

f Those passed over (prceteriti) are plainly indicated by Festus in the passage so 
often quoted on this subject; for he mentions the loco ?noti as well as the prceteriti ; yet 
some have confounded these two descriptions, and have supposed the prceteriti to be 
those whose names the Censors omitted in calling over (recitando) the senate. P. Man., 
cap. iii. 



CH. XI.] FUNCTIONS OF THE SENATE. 129 

having at that time been chosen dictator for the express purpose 
of filling up the senate, reduced to one hundred and twenty-three 
by the Punic war, then going on, after enrolling all who had held 
curule offices, he completed the number by enrolling those who 
had been tribunes of the commons, and also some plebeians as 
well as patricians, merely on account of their military services 
and honours* — for the senate might, therefore, now be considered 
as a popular body, quite as much so as the British House of 
Commons during the times when it was formed upon the principle 
of virtual representation. -j- 

The power and jurisdiction of the senate is matter of less con- 
troversy. It appears at first to have engrossed almost all the 
functions of government, except the command of the army, and 
the decision of the greater causes, which were both reserved for 
the king, But the senate had the power of making peace and 
war during the monarchy, of levying troops, of raising taxes and 
managing the revenue, of distributing the public lands. Every 
ten senators had a chief, called the curio, and the ten curiones of 
the Ramnes tribe governed each five days in rotation when the 
throne was vacant; they were then called interreges, and the 
vacancy an interregnum. One of them also presided in the 
senate, and acted as viceroy or lieutenant (custos urbis) in the 
king's absence. The power of the senate, however, did not 
extend beyond the city ; the king had absolute power beyond its 
limits. In the earliest times of the republic the senate appointed 
the dictator. Afterwards a dictator could not be named without 
a resolution of the senate, but the nomination was given to one 
of the consuls. Until the rise of the plebeians to power, the 
senate's previous consent was required to the entertaining any 
proposition by the other bodies in the state. There seems to 
have been originally no effectual check upon the senate's power, 
except the prerogative which the king had of convoking it, and of 
prescribing what should be discussed before it. 

It is to be observed that there was a great difference between 
the senators of the greater and lesser houses. The former, those 

* F. Hottoman's treatises De Mag. Rom. and De Sen. et Sctis deserve to be con- 
sulted as conveniently bringing together much of the learning on these subjects, with 
great accuracy and impartiality. 

f Liv. xxiii. 23, says that he thus chose one hundred and seventy-seven senators 
with extreme impartiality, showing a preference of classes, not of individuals (ut orda 
ordini non homo homini praelatus esse videretur), and with universal approbation. 
PART II. K 



130 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. XI. 

of the Ramnes and Tities, were called upon first to give their 
opinion ; and the latter, those of the Luceres, were only allowed 
to vote without speaking, unless they had been consuls. No 
difference whatever was made between the Patres, the original 
senators, and the Conscripti, those who were added at the expul- 
sion of the Tarquins to fill up the number. The phrase Patres 
Conscripti is commonly translated " Conscript Fathers ;" but it 
was equivalent in the old Latin idiom, which did not use conjunc- 
tions, to " Patres et Conscripti." As the kings originally had 
the exclusive right of bringing any subject before the senate, it is 
probable that this right passed to the consuls ; but it was after- 
wards obtained by all the consular tribunes and praetors, and of 
course by dictators and other extraordinary officers, and in later 
times by the tribunes of the commons. The senate was a great 
administrative council, endowed with all except the authority to 
make laws, to choose the ordinary magistrates (for originally it 
chose the dictator), and to make peace and war. These functions 
were vested in the comitia, that is, in the assemblies of the 
people ; but as the consul was almost always under the influence of 
the senate, and as the comitia centuriata could not be held without 
his authority, the senate could generally prevent their meeting. 

Although the power and jurisdiction of the senate is less con- 
troverted, yet it varied exceedingly in different periods. We are 
at present to regard it chiefly in the earlier stages, before the 
popular influence was established. The rise of the commons in 
Rome, as everywhere else, was gradual ; and we must therefore 
fix upon some time at which to consider the senate's influence. 
The greatest power which it ever possessed was immediately 
after the expulsion of the Tarquins : it retained all the authority 
which it had held at any time during the monarchy; and when 
instead of a king,* whose office was for life, and who had a body 
guard, there were substituted consuls who held their office for a 
year, and were answerable at the end of that time for whatever 
they had done while in office, the senate's power greatly increased. 

The senate was from the beginning not merely the council of 
the king, as the celeres or equites were his body guards ; it had 

* They who treat Romulus as a real person relate the tradition, that, having excited 
the jealousy of the senate or the patrician body, he was assassinated by them ; Livy 
says, torn in pieces. The encroachments of the chiefs and jealousy of the nobles were 
probably real events. 



CH. XI.] INFLUENCE OF THE SENATE. 131 

powers independent of him ; engrossed the greater portion of the 
functions of government ; and had a great weight also in legisla- 
tion. Except the command of the army, the decision of private 
causes or lawsuits between individuals., and the duty of high 
priest, all which functions belonged to the king, subject only to 
the religious control of the augurs or soothsayers, the govern- 
ment might be said to vest in the senate within the city; beyond 
it the king was absolute in all respects. The senate levied troops, 
managed the revenue, disposed of the public lands. It had the 
sole power of proposing laws to the comitia, whether curiata or 
centuriata. The only check upon its authority was, that it could 
not assemble without the king's convoking it, and that it could 
not entertain any question which he had not brought before it. 
No new law could be considered in the comitia without the pre- 
vious consent both of the king and the senate. It must, however, 
be borne in mind, that as regards the body of the patricians, no 
addition was made to their power by the previous veto of the 
senate ; for whether a law was proposed in the curiata or centu- 
riata, the patricians in the one case directly, in the other substan- 
tially, decided upon its adoption or rejection. 

We have marked the distinction made between the different 
classes of senators, those of the greater and lesser houses. But 
no difference was made between the Patres and the Conscripti, or 
those added, on the expulsion of the Tarquins, to complete the 
body. When two consuls were substituted for a king, the right 
of assembling the senate devolved upon them, and it is likely that 
at first they also had, like the kings, the exclusive right of pro- 
pounding the subjects for consideration. This, however, was 
afterwards obtained by other magistrates, namely the Praetor, 
together with the principal extraordinary magistrates, the dic- 
tator, the consular tribunes, the interrex, and the decemvirs. The 
influence of the senate was always great with the consuls, as long 
as these were chosen only from the patrician body, and it was one 
of the many consequences of this, that the comitia centuriata 
were not often held while the power of the senate was at its 
height. Originally, the choice of a dictator belonged to the 
senate, and the consuls naming him upon the senate's appoint- 
ment, was only a form to testify that they did not object to this 
superseding of their own authority. Afterwards the consul named 

k 2 



M 



132 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. XI. 

a dictator at his discretion, when he was commanded by the senate 
so to do. Without choosing a dictator the senate could confer 
upon the consuls absolute power within the city, as they always 
possessed it beyond the walls. This was done by a vote passed 
in critical emergencies, that the consuls should take care the state 
si fibred no harm ; and sometimes, though rarely, the other great 
magistrates, as the praetors, were joined in the same vote. When 
ihe dominions of the republic were much extended, the principal 
duty of the consuls was the conduct of the wars in which the 
people were unceasingly engaged. The senate assigned to the 
consuls their provinces or commands. In like manner, when 
there was a necessity for a greater number of military com- 
manders, and additional magistrates were created with the title of 
prat or (beside the original praetor, who remained in the city to 
administer justice in civil causes), the senate assigned the provinces 
of the praetors ; and in later times, when it was necessary to pro- 
vide for the government of many conquered countries, and it had 
become usual to commit these to magistrates who had already 
passed through their year of office, and were now called pro- 
consuls and proprcetors, the senate determined the provinces, that 
is, determined which should be consular, and which praetorian. 
Thereupon those magistrates cast lots for them. The appoint- 
ment of ambassadors, the giving audiences to those of foreign 
states, the awarding honours, the decreeing a triumph, a suppli- 
cation, or an ovation, were in all ages the peculiar province of the 
senate. In certain causes judges were chosen out of the senate. 
This judicial power at a late period (a.u.c. 630) was transferred 
to the equestrian order, then shared with them, and afterwards 
by Sylla restored to the senate. 

The authority thus possessed by the senate during the age 
when the assembly was composed of patricians, whom the rigorous 
law preventing plebeian intermarriages kept as a separate body, 
was, as might be expected, abused to the greatest degree. Not 
only the common people (plebs) were treated with insupportable 
haughtiness, and insults quite gratuitous, such as being summoned 
to the comitia by the sound of a horn, while the curiae were cited 
individually, each by the lictor of his curia ; but the public land, 
all that came to the state by conquest (which generally amounted 
to one-third, the rest being left to the conquered people, who paid 



CH. XI.] AGRARIAN LAW. 133 

rent for it *) was parcelled out among the patricians, while the 
plebeians, when they got any, had only small allotments, not 
exceeding two jugera, or one acre and a half. These allotments 
were possessed by them in fee simple ; and in the earliest times 
the whole of the plebeians were landowners, even the city tribes 
being, for the most part, engaged in agriculture, as they were 
not allowed to occupy themselves either with trade or the mecha- 
nical arts. The patricians held only some very small portions of 
land in fee simple ; but they had large possessions, as they were 
called, that is, large tracts of the public land, which were by 
law resumable at the pleasure of the state, and were also by law 
held on condition of paying to the state a tenth of the produce of 
corn, a fifth of wine and all other produce, and some rent, it is 
uncertain what, for cattle in the pasture-land. As, however, the 
government was vested in their own hands, these laws were habi- 
tually evaded ; and among the first attempts made by the people 
to lessen the patrician power was the proposed law for enforcing 
the payment of the rents by the patricians, restricting the extent 
of their occupation, and dividing a portion of the domains among 
the commons. Spurius Cassius, a. u. c. 227, first made this 
attempt, and was put to death by the patricians, upon the pretext 
that he had formed a conspiracy to restore monarchy. After a 
struggle of ten years Licinius Stolo, a. u. c. 387, succeeded in 
carrying his law to restrict the possessions to five hundred jugera 
(three hundred and seventy-eight acres), the number of cattle to 
one hundred, and of sheep to five hundred, dividing all the residue 
of the lands among the commons, in the proportion of seven jugera 
(five acres) to each, requiring a certain number of free citizens to 
be employed in the cultivation, and enforcing the payment of the 
patrician rents to, the state. The law, however, was evaded in all 
its branches, and Tiberius Gracchus long after (a.u.c. 630) 
perished in an attempt to revive and extend the Licinian rogations, 
or proposed laws. The possessions, though resumable, never 
were resumed. The court of the praetor, exercising an equitable 
jurisdiction, restrained by his interdict (or injunction) all inter- 
ference with the possession. The land thus held was transmitted 
to heirs or devisees, and conveyed to purchasers as if it had been 
held in fee. The error, therefore, of most writers in treating of 

* The rent was one-tenth of corn and one-fifth of all other produce. These rent* 
were farmed out by the state. 



134 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. XI. 

Agrarian laws docs not, as Niebuhr maintains, consist in consi- 
dering that those laws interfered with property, for they did 
directly interfere, or even that they established a maximum, for a 
maximum was established by them; but in considering that they 
prevented any person from holding above a certain extent of land 
by any title. The Agrarian laws did not prevent that ; they only 
sought to limit the extent which should be held of the domain 
lands.* 

But though this monopoly of land was sufficiently grievous, and 
the burdens imposed on the people heavy in proportion as the 
patricians escaped from the payment of their rent to the public, 
the worst oppressions exercised by that body were in their capacity 
of creditors. The law gave them power of the most unlimited 
and of the most barbarous kind ; and the wealth of the order, 
amassed probably both by foreign commerce and by agriculture, f 
had reduced a great proportion of the plebeians to the condition 
of debtors. The person of the debtor could be seized and impri- 
soned, but he could also be worked and scourged like a slave 
until the debt was paid ; and he was even liable to be cut in 
pieces by one or more creditors, in proportion to their demands, 
without any punishment being inflicted if the proportion was ex- 
ceeded. In so cruel and bloody-minded a nation, an aristocracy 
so proud and unfeeling as the patricians showed themselves at all 
periods was sure to exercise such powers, except perhaps the last, 
without remorse ; and the first great resistance of the plebeians, 
after the time when they joined their oppressors against the king 
as a common enemy, was about twenty years subsequent to that 
event (a.u.c. 263), when they left the city at a critical period of 
the war, indicating, it is supposed, a disposition to have back the 
kings, rather than any longer to bear the tyranny of the privileged 
orders. A most important advantage was the result of this mea- 
sure. They obtained the power of assembling by tribes in a 

* It would be quite as correct to assert that an English act of Parliament restricting 
copyholders to four hundred acres, limiting the number of cattle they could turn out on 
the wastes to half the proportion of their levancy and couchancy, and giving the lord all 
the copyhold tenements above four hundred acres, implied no maximum and no for- 
feiture of vested copyhold rights, as to contend, after the manner of. Niebuhr, that the 
Agrarian laws did not interfere with patrician property and establish a maximum. 
The copyhold is, in contemplation of law, a tenure at the lord's will; and the resump- 
tion by the state in Rome would have been as violent an act, after very long possession, 
as the law we are supposing. 

f See Arnold, Hist, of Rome, vol. i. 



CH. XI.] TRIBUNES OF THE PEOPLE. 135 

comitia tributa, which no patrician could attend,,* and of choos- 
ing magistrates of their own, whose office it should be to protect 
them from all oppression. These were called tribunes, being 
elected by the assembled tribes. The accounts differ as to their 
original number, whether two or five ; *f* but the right of the 
officer is certain, although he may not all at once have been 
invested with it. In the course of a short time the tribune could 
summon any one before the comitia tributa, and impeach him 
there ; and he soon acquired another, and a singular power, that 
of stopping any measure, whether legislative or administrative, 
by his single negative, called his veto. So great was the force of 
this interposition (intercessio) that one tribune could throw out a 
measure, preventing it from becoming a senatus consultant, (an 
order or resolution of the senate), or a law in the comitia, though 
his colleague supported it. The person too of the tribune was 
sacred, and could not be in any way affected during his office ; 
insomuch, that if he were to enter the senate, where he had no 
right to be, though his presence of itself caused the business to 
cease, he being a stranger, yet no steps could be taken to make 
him withdraw. His presence had the same effect in the senate 
with a motion that the house be counted, which any one might 
make by saying numeral senatum ; and if the proper number was 
not present the business was stopped. J The same effect in the 

* This is the generally received opinion ; but there seems a plain mistake in sup- 
posing that the comitia tributa were first held on this occasion. It is much more pro- 
bable that they had been held ever since the expulsion of the Tarquins, if indeed Servius 
Tullius had not originally established them. Certain it is that the account of the 
Valerian law, the law of Valerius Publicola, which so greatly endeared him to the 
people, is unintelligible, unless there existed comitia tributa at that time ; because it 
provided an appeal for the plebeian against the sentence of any magistrate — that is, 
any patrician; and that could be no kind of security if the appeal was only to the pa- 
trician body which the comitia centuriata was, to all intents and purposes. It is an 
additional reason for disbelieving the common accounts, that we are told the trial of 
Coriolanus, A.u.c. 263, was the first instance of the senate giving up its judicial power 
to the people, and the first instance of any popular measure without a previous senatus 
consultum. Now this is the same date with the supposed origin of the comitia tri- 
buta. Is it likely that an assembly, then for the first time known, should at once 
both have obtained judicial-authority, and afforded the first instance of any assembly 
acting without the previous authority of the senate? Is it not much more probable that 
these important steps were made by a body already existing, which was well known, 
and which had been for a course of years increasing its power ? 

f Two plebeian sediles were also allowed thenceforth to be chosen, with judicial as 
well as police powers. 

I There is nothing known for certain as to the number which formed a quorum. 
For some purposes two hundred were required. It is said that for others four hundred 



136 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. XI. 

comitia curiata, was produced by a declaration of the haruspices 
that 1 1 ic- omens were unfavourable, which defeated a measure 
agreed upon by both senate and comitia. If the tribune, how- 
ever, opposed in the senate, the decree was still recorded (pre- 
scrijjhim), notwithstanding that he opposed the recording. This 
seems to have been the only exception to his absolute veto. 

But great, as was the gain thus made by the plebeian influence, 
it was not till their legislative powers became recognised that the 
commons could be said to have thrown off the yoke of the aris- 
tocracy. The previous consent of the senate, by a senatus con- 
sultum, was first dispensed with in the year 281 (u.c), but the 
law so made at the comitia tributa only bound the commons. 
Soon after (304) the Valerian and Horatian law is said to have 
given the plebiscitum, or resolution of the tribes, general efficacy 
over all the orders of the state; but another law was made 
(a. u. c. 414), the Publilian, which made the senate a party to 
whatever the people might order ; and the Hortensian law, at a 
much later period (a. u.c. 465), expressly declared the plebiscitum 
to have universally the force of law. The probability is that the 
two latter laws were only made to declare and enforce a law already 
in existence.* 

The comitia curiata fell gradually into disuse as the centuriata, 
and especially as the tributa rose into power ; latterly they were 
a mere form, and only kept in existence for the sake of religious 
ceremonials, the jurisdiction over which belonged to them. The 
struggles of the commons with the patricians were almost entirely 
made in obtaining the privileges for the comitia tributa; the 
centuriata being so entirely under the control of the patricians 
that no opposition could arise between them and the senate. The 
course of legislation, however, was the same in both tributa and 
centuriata. In both, as in the senate, and originally in the 
curiata, while these continued effective, only certain persons had 
the right to propose measures {jus rogationis, or legis ferendce) 
originally propounded exclusively by the king. These persons 
were the two great ordinary magistrates, consuls and praetors ; 
the extraordinary ones, dictator, interrex (who acted with consular 

in later times were required, after the total number had increased to six hundred, and 
under the empire to one thousand. 

* Dionysius gives the first of these statutes — Livy the second — A. Gellius, after 
Laelius, the third — P. Manutius, De Legg., cap. xxxiii., judiciously suggests the ex- 
planation. 



CH. XI.] COURSE OF LEGISLATION ANOMALIES. 137 

power when the consuls had not been named, and when there 
was no dictator, and was appointed for five days only), tribune 
with consular power, and of course the decemviri, appointed ex- 
pressly to propose laws. The law was first prepared (scripta), 
then propounded (promulgata, quasi prevulgata) by the magis- 
trate, who, if he desired to have the general assent, first obtained 
a senatus consultum, and on that grounded his proposal to the 
comitia ; if he was a demagogue he proposed the law at once. 
The comitia, after discussion, in which only those allowed by the 
magistrates took part, voted by ballot, drawing lots for which 
century or tribe should vote first — should be first asked its 
opinion : hence the priority thus obtained was called prcerogativa, 
and the majority of the centuries or tribes decided.* 

The double legislation in this system, which has been ob- 
served upon by Mr. Hume as a very strange anomaly, inasmuch 
as the two bodies, the tribes and centuries, were wholly inde- 
pendent of each other, and so differently composed that the patri- 
cians and wealthy class preponderated at all times and of necessity 
in the one, and the numerous body, the multitude, without any 
rank, and with little or with no property, as necessarily prevailed 
in the other. But there was another anomaly, almost as great, 
in the conflicting powers of the senate ; for although its exclusive 
legislative authority had ceased, it retained a concurrent power 
upon certain matters, having, after the disuse of the comitia curiata 
and the rise of the tributa, become not only a great and powerful 
administrative council, but also exercising important legislative 
functions, not only in assenting to the measures which were to be 
brought before the comitia, but also in passing certain S. C. and 
decrees, which had the force of laws, without any sanction of the 
bodies in which the general legislative power had become vested. 
P. Manutius has enumerated between twenty and thirty S. C. 
which were binding generally without any other laws to give 
them efficacy ; and though their subjects are chiefly of an ad- 
ministrative or executive nature, as raising troops, sending ambas- 
sadors, repairing the roads, some are legislative, as fixing the 
rate of interest. It is supposed that the people assented tacitly 

* Some writers have hazarded the assertion very confidently that, though the cen- 
turies voted by centuries, the tribes voted individually (per capita). The weight of 
authority is as entirely the other way as can be conceived on any such question. C. 
Sigonius, De Jur. Ant. Civ, Rom., i. 17; Onuph. Panvin., De Civ. Rom., cap. 69; 
N. Gruch., ii., 4 ; P. Man., De Legg. Rom., cap. 37 ; Rosin. Aut., viii. 2. 



138 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. XI. 

to the proceedings of the senate. But the solution of the difficulty 
Lies in the tribunitian power. As the veto could at any moment 
stop the S. C, the Benate was suffered to go on, just like our 
courts, acting under the powers of a statute, and making laws 
which are binding unless either house of parliament shall, on 
being apprized of them, dissent. The same remark applies to 
the legislation of the centuries. The knowledge that the tri- 
bunes could interpose must have tended to make the centuries 
often adopt measures towards which they had the greatest disin- 
clination. But the knowledge that the comitia tributa could pass 
a law without either senate or centuries must have had still more 
weight with both. There can be no doubt that both the comitia 
had the same power of making laws. The tributa always exer- 
cised it, but until the year 414, as we have seen, the plebiscita 
were not generally binding. These plebiscita, like the S. C, 
were in most cases administrative or executive, as giving the 
lesser provinces to propraetors or proconsuls, and making peace, 
it being held quite clear that the centuries alone could make war, 
and only a single instance being found of the tributa taking this 
upon itself. But the Aquilian law respecting personal injuries, 
the Falcidian respecting wills, A. u. c. 714 (both inserted in Jus- 
tinian's Codes), the Silian on weights and measures, the Attian, 
a.u.c. 620, on the right of tribunes to be named senators, were all 
plebiscita, and made by the tribes alone.* The centuriata are 
supposed by some to have made fewer laws than the tributa ; but 
this position must be confined to administrative measures, for the 
greater number of the general legislative measures were made by 
the centuries, with the previous authority of the senate. The 
pow r er of declaring war, trying for treason, and choosing the con- 
suls, praetors, and quaestors, possessed by the centuries, and the 
power of making peace, trying for minor offences, and naming 
ambassadors and inferior officers, possessed by the tribes, appear 
really to have been the only exclusive privileges of these two 
bodies; and there seems no reason to doubt that the senate had 
the same concurrent authority, together with the exclusive right of 
naming a dictator and interrex. Now it must necessarily result 
from the existence of bodies with concurrent and equal powers, 
that each will yield somewhat to the others. If each of our houses 
of parliament could make laws, each would, on being asked by 

* P. Man., De Legg.. cap. v. 



CH. XI.] SOLUTION OF THE PARADOX. 139 

the other, adopt partially measures to which it was averse, in 
order to prevent the greater evil of the whole measures being 
carried in spite of it ; and the wish to gain the advantage of having 
a law or a measure of any kind adopted by both would incline the 
house which propounded it to rest satisfied with a partial accom- 
plishment of its purpose. There can be little doubt that this was 
the effect of the co-ordinate powers possessed by the three bodies at 
Rome.* Even the absolute veto of the tribune found a practical 
check in various ways. Thus, if he prevented a consul from being 
chosen, the senate appointed an interrex, and might appoint a 
dictator — which was threatened in Pompey's case; or it could 
declare by a S. C. that the tribune was answerable for all the 
consequences of his intercession ; or it could give absolute power 
to the consul, by the vote ne quid detrimenti. In these and the 
like instances the consuls and senate were secure as often as the 
tribunes plainly put themselves in the wrong, and were not sup- 
ported by a very great majority of the people. Cicero's case 
illustrates this. The senate and centuries were decidedly favour- 
able to his return from banishment; all the tribunes but two, 
whom Clodius had corrupted, took his part also; and the people 
being well disposed towards him, these two, Serranus and Quinc- 
tus, did not venture to give their veto. Clodius, it must be ob- 
served, was the only dissentient in the vote of the senate. 

There was a more direct check to the tribune's power, and 
generally to the authority of the tribes, in the religion, or rather 
superstition, of that most superstitious people. Towards the end 
of the sixth century the iElian and Fusian laws were passed, 
by the former of which the observation of the heavens, and the 
auspices, or examination of the entrails of birds, suspended all pro- 
ceedings in the popular assemblies ; and by the latter all holy 
days (dies fasti) were made to adjourn popular proceedings, 
and were consecrated to religious rites and to the administration 
of justice. The multitude had thus time given for reflection, and 
the upper classes for exercising their natural influence ; and when 
Clodius obtained a repeal of the law in a.u.c. 699, Cicero declared 
that " the bulwarks of the public peace had been swept away " 
(In Pison. 4). To them he ascribed the escape of the community 

* Before we can adopt Mr. Falck's doctrine {Encyclopedic Juridique, iii. s. 69), and 
Niebuhr's, ii. 240, that the senate's assent was required to give plebiscita a binding 
efl'ect, we must get rid of all that has been said on the Hortensian and similar laws. 



KM 



140 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. XI. 

from all former seditions.* But before this law, which was pro- 
bably declaratory, and to enforce the custom, the distinction had 
existed between the greater and lesser magistrates, with regard to 
the auspices. The consul, praetor, and censor could interpose at 
any popular meeting with the announcement that the auguries 
were unfavourable, and could thus prevent the adoption of any 
measure by the tribes, as well as by the senate and centuries. The 
lesser magistrates had no such power, although the tribune could 
use his veto. This privilege of the auspices put the patrician 
magistrates upon an equal footing with the tribunes, giving them 
in fact a veto. Now the result of a mutual veto must needs be a 
compromise, as has already been shown (Part n., c. n.). The 
senate acted without its accustomed good judgment when, in- 
stead of being satisfied with these checks, and, above all, with the 
veto of the auspices, they allied themselves occasionally with one 
of the tribunes to obtain his aid in obstructing his colleagues. 
They had recourse to this expedient against Tiberius Gracchus, 
who was compelled by it to have his colleague removed — the only 
instance of a tribune ever being displaced. Their error was still 
greater when they sought the like assistance as against their own 
natural ally, the consul. Upon the refusal of the consuls to appoint 
a dictator, a. u. c. 322, the tribunes were appealed to, and, by the 
threats of arrest, compelled them to obey the senate — a lesson on 
their supreme power which these magistrates never forgot, but 
once and again turned to their account, as against the patricians. 
It must however be allowed that when the number of the tribunes 
was increased to ten, this gave inevitably a considerable hold over 
them to the rival bodies, as it became the more likely that divi- 
sions should exist among the tribunes; and so far, therefore, this 
may be reckoned among the checks to the plebeian domination. 

Of the anomalies to which w T e have been referring, no explana- 
tion whatever can be derived from the choice of almost all the 
magistrates who had the right of propounding laws being vested 
in the patrician bodies, the senate, and the centuries, because 

* A singular uncertainty prevails respecting the date of these two laws. The ^Elian 
is by P. Manutiu8 held to have been a tribunitian law, as he says he can find no consul 
of the jElia Gens, which Sigonius and Onuph. Panvin. have shown that there are. But 
Hottoman ascribes it to Q. Celius, praetor in a.u.c. 586, and the Fusian to Publius 
Fusius (or Furius) Philo, in A.u.c. 617, which agrees well enough with Cicero's state- 
ment that the law (in that passage be treats it as one ; elsewhere, In Patin., as two) 
had existed near one hundred years. In Pis., 5. 



CH. XI. J DEFECTS OF THE GOVERNMENT DECEMVIRS. 141 

there was one office, the most important of all in this point of 
view, the tribuneship, in filling up which the tribes only could act. 
But the powers of that office and the general authority of the 
comitia tributa in a very short time so far diminished that of the 
patricians, that the government, from an almost pure aristocracy, 
became democratic, with an admixture of aristocratic influence. 

But the machinery of government and legislation did not become 
capable of working without very great difficulties being encoun- 
tered, and serious obstacles raised by this double legislation. The 
existence of two legislative bodies, distinct, independent, and hos- 
tilely opposed to one another, became so intolerable from their 
constant jarring and from the conflicting laws which they made, 
that the community had recourse to an extraordinary magistracy 
which should supersede both the one and the other order, be 
armed with dictatorial powers like a single magistrate, and at the 
same time resemble a popular body or council, by its numbers. 
Ten persons were constituted a Supreme Council to prepare a 
body of laws which should be binding on the whole people. They 
digested the old laws, with such additions as they thought expe- 
dient, chiefly borrowed from the jurisprudence of the Grecian 
States ; * and these laws of the Ten, afterwards Twelve Tables 
being adopted by the senate and the comitia, became the founda- 
tion of the whole legal system. This important change took place 
at the beginning of the fourth century. 

* It is the opinion of Niebuhr and others that nothing at all was taken from Greece ; 
an opinion for which there appears no sufficient ground. 



142 [ch. xii. 



CHAPTER XII. 

CONSTITUTION OF ROME. 

(Continued.) 



Government carried on by laws and legislative decrees — Consuls— Praetors — ^Ediles, 
Plebeian and Curule— Quaestors, Civil and Military — Choice of Magistrates— Con- 
troversy de Binis Comitiis — Dictator — Progress of popular power— Interrex — 
Consular functions — Provincial Pro-Praetors and Pro-Consuls — Vigour of the Go- 
vernment — Religious polity — Pontiffs — Rex Sacrorum— College of Augurs — Ham- 
spices — Sibylline Decemvirs — Singular facts — Judicial duties of Magistrates — Cor- 
nelian laws — Judicial system — Judices — Centumviri — Quaesitores — Jus Quaestionis, 
or Merum Imperium — Divinatio — Special judicial laws — Abuses from thence — 
Analogy of Parliamentary Privilege — Impeachment — Cognitiones extraordinariae — 
Examples. 

In treating of the Senate and the Comitia, we have nearly ex- 
plained the subject of the Roman constitution as far as the supreme 
power is concerned, whether legislative or executive. For the 
administration of the government, as well as the machinery of 
legal enactment, was carried on almost entirely by what were 
called laws or decrees of those bodies ; and the magistrates had 
little more to do than to bring propositions before them, and to 
carry their resolutions into execution, whether in their political 
or their judicial capacity, of which the latter formed by far the 
greater portion of their duties, unless in the case of the consuls 
who commanded the forces and governed the provinces, the quaes- 
tors who managed the financial concerns of those provinces, and 
some of the inferior provincial officers, as proconsuls and pro- 
praetors. 

The consuls originally succeeded to the whole power of the 
kings, and could order any one to be summarily put to death 
for disobeying their orders. This power was soon restrained by 
the Valerian law, which gave an appeal to the tribes in the case 
of a plebeian, the patricians having already an appeal to the 
curiae or the centuries. Out of the city the consul was absolute ; 
and in the city, when he acted with the senate's advice and con-, 



CH. XII.] CONSULS PRAETORS iEDILES — QUJESTORS. 143 

sent,, as he generally did, his power was only bounded by the 
veto of the tribunes, and checked by the knowledge that at the end 
of the year he became a private citizen, and was answerable for 
all he had done in his office. The creation of censors restrained 
the functions of the consuls as we have seen ; and their judicial 
power was transferred to the praetors. But still they retained the 
military command of the State, and could both raise and distri- 
bute its forces, appoint the officers, and take the money appointed 
for the payment of the troops, which the quaestors, who were at 
the head of the treasury, could not refuse unless upon extreme 
occasions. The tribunes were in fact the only magistrates not 
subject to their authority ; and they had the duty of executing all 
the decrees of the senate, and all the laws made by the comitia 
centuriata. 

The praetors were, strictly speaking, judicial ; and they exer- 
cised extensive jurisdiction. But although edicts which they 
made at entering upon their office laid down the laws by which 
they were to be governed, and although some of these were termed 
translatitious, being taken from former edicts, and others new, yet 
there is no reason to believe that they departed materially from 
the received laws of the State. Whatever they added to the edicts 
of their predecessors was probably a mere statement in writing of 
the customary or common law. Their numbers were increased 
to six in the year A.u.c. 604, and sometimes there were as many 
as eight. 

The plebeian eediles were ancient magistrates created in A.u.c. 
261, and they had both the superintendence of police and a petty 
jurisdiction in such causes as the tribunes delegated to them. They 
bore to the tribunes the same relation which the praetor did to the 
consul : they were his deputies to act under him, and his substi- 
tutes in his absence ; but they did not, like the praetor and curule 
aedile, issue any general edicts. The curule aediles created in a.u.c. 
388 had a high jurisdiction, chiefly in matters of economy and 
police ; but as connected with these, they kept a watch upon cases 
of an immoral description. They had the same practice with the 
praetors, of issuing an edict on entering upon office, to declare the 
rules which they should follow. 

The quaestors or treasurers were either civil or military, the 
former having the control of the financial affairs of the State, the 
latter accompanying the consul on his military service for the 



144 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. XII. 

supply of the troops. Tacitus is supposed to be mistaken in his 
statement; that the office existed under the kings; that after- 
wards the consuls appointed the quaestor until the year 307, when 
the people elected him ; and that the military quaestors were the 
more anciently appointed, the office of city quaestor not being 
created till a much later period. All other authorities are agreed 
in representing the city quaestor, or general financier, as coeval 
with the commonwealth, and the military as appointed long after 
— Livy says in the year 333. There were then two of each de- 
scription ; and in 488, when all Italy was conquered and divided 
into four governments, four new quaestors were chosen, one for 
each. The office was the first in the course of promotion towards 
the consulship and the senate ; as such it was much sought after ; 
and accordingly the number of quaestors was in later times in- 
creased for party purposes. Sylla raised it to twenty ; and Julius 
Caesar, whose kindly disposition ever kept pace with his thirst of 
power, made no less than forty, to gratify his adherents. 

There is no part of the Roman constitution supposed to be 
better ascertained than that which relates to the choice of magis- 
trates, and none which seems to have been less broken in upon by 
violence and usurpation. The comitia centuriata chose the con- 
suls and praetors, censors, curule aediles, and quaestors. The 
tributa chose the tribunes and all inferior magistrates. The senate 
appointed the dictator and interrex ; and the tribes chose the tri- 
bunes with consular power. A controversy, however, was long 
carried on between two learned jurists, N. Gruchius and C. Si- 
gonius, upon the question called " de birds comitiis," that is, 
whether the choice of the centuries required confirmation by the 
curiae, and after them by the tribes ; and whether in like manner 
the choice of the tribes required confirmation by the centuries. 
The affirmative was maintained by Gruchius, the negative by 
Sigonius, in a series of learned treatises in the latter part of the 
sixteenth century. The arguments of the latter appear greatly 
to preponderate ; nor can the complete success of the plebeians in 
their struggle with the patricians be deemed compatible with the 
doctrine of Gruchius. 

The choice of a dictator stood in peculiar circumstances. The 
senate decreed that there should be one appointed, but never 
named him ; this was left to the consul, it is said, because the 
pow r er conferred seemed to supersede his own, and therefore his 



CH. XII.] DICTATOR INTER -REX. 145 

assent must be interposed. Certain it is that although the consul 
was generally supposed to take whatever name the senate pleased, 
his acting in the nomination was deemed absolutely necessary, 
and the senate never acted of itself in it ; insomuch that when 
there was a manifest necessity for a dictator in the second Punic 
war, and one consul being killed, and all communication cut off 
with the other, instead of proceeding to appoint Fabius Maximus, 
the senate referred the choice to the people ; and to prevent this 
from being drawn into precedent he was only called pro-dictator. 
Though the consul generally adopted the senate's suggestion, 
there were exceptions. Thus Clodius, to insult the senate and the 
office, named a door-keeper (Gricia), and P. Lacsenas, A.u.c. 397, 
named, in opposition to the senate, a plebeian, the first time the 
office had ever been so filled. The appointment of a dictator 
being odious to the people was more and more disused as their 
power increased, and from a.u.c. 554 to Sylla's time, 671, none 
was appointed. Sylla and Julius Caesar were chosen dictators by 
the people, now reduced to submission. Till their time, with the 
exception of Fabius, the senate and consuls had in all cases named 
the dictator. During the struggle of the plebeians for the con- 
sulship the consular tribunes were chosen by the people when 
they had the ascendant, and when the patricians were stronger 
consuls were elected. This state of things lasted from the time 
of Canuleius's attempt to open the consulship, A.u.c. 307 to 387, 
when the first plebeian consul was chosen. These consular tri- 
bunes at first were three in number, and a fourth was added 
in 327 ; two more in 348 ; and they never were more than six. 
Notwithstanding the struggle between the Orders out of which 
this office arose, the plebeians were satisfied with the point which 
they had gained of being eligible, and elected none but patricians 
for half a century ; nor after that time did they choose nearly as 
many of their own as of the other Order. At length their admis- 
sion to the consulate itself put a period to the contention, and 
consular tribunes were chosen no more. 

It is singular that with so great hatred of the mere name of 
king the Romans should have preserved that of interrex through 
all times of the commonwealth. In the vacancy of the consular 
office he was appointed, and only by the senate, only from the 
patrician body, and only for five days; but during these days he 
had the whole authority, civil and military, of the consul, as far 

PART II. l 



146 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. XII. 

as it could be executed without leaving Rome. At the end of the 
five days he named his successor, and the second interrex held 
the comitia for the choice of consuls, which in practice came to be 
the principal function of the office. His power of proposing laws 
was necessarily limited, because no law, though adopted, could be 
confirmed and passed until it had been published about four weeks 
(three market days, at nine days' interval), and his own power did 
not extend to the second publication. In troublous times, however, 
the interrex appears to have acted more than ministerially. The 
law giving Sylla absolute power was propounded by an interrex ; 
and the interrex and pro-consuls near the city were once armed 
by the senate with the extraordinary authority of providing for the 
public safety. The consuls were almost always, in the earlier 
times of the commonwealth, employed in commanding the armies 
of the state, and the consular power in their absence devolved upon 
the praetor, then called custos urbis. If the war had not been 
brought to a close when the consul's year expired, he was fre- 
quently intrusted in the command either till the operation in 
which he was engaged was finished, or for a time certain ; and he 
had the title of pro-consul during this prolongation of his au- 
thority ; but with all the authority, civil as well as military, 
though local, of consul. This prolongation was first resorted to 
in the year 427.* As the conquests of Rome increased, the pro- 
vinces were given to pro-consuls and pro-praetors, that is, to the 
consuls and praetors upon the expiration of their office, and with a 
view to government merely, though there might be no warlike 
operations to conduct. In these provinces they exercised supreme 
power, and the possession of them formed the great object of 
ambition towards the latter periods of the republic. A third 
kind of pro-consul, and pro-praetor, was that of the military com- 
mand being given in any expedition or province to an individual 
who was not at the time, nor had been immediately before, in 
office. This last was not a magistery, but a mere command : the 
two former were magistrates, having the potestas, or jurisdiction, 
as well as the impenum, or command. The senate appointed in 
all the three cases ; but in the first case, that of prolonging con- 
sular jurisdiction, and in the last, that of a private person being 

* Nothing can be more clear than that Dion., lib. ix., is wrong in the statement of a 
pro-consul having been created in the year 275. Beaufort, i. 336, explains this error 
satisfactorily. 






CH. XII.] REVOLUTIONARY VIGOUR OF THE GOVERNMENT. 147 

commissioned, the concurrence of the tribes by a plebiscitum was 
required. In this third case the authority of the comitia curiata 
was also necessary to give the command, and it was necessary in 
order to clothe the consuls or praetors in the second case with the 
fullest powers. Accordingly they almost always either obtained 
it before leaving the city, or had it immediately conferred under 
their successors. In the distribution of provinces the senate was 
held alone to decide, although the tribes occasionally interfered, 
and with more or less success, according to the state of parties 
and their relative strength at the moment. For some time after 
the establishment of the tribunate the senate generally obtained 
the assent of the tribes, but this practice was gradually laid aside. 
In the year 631 a law proposed by C. Gracchus confined the 
senate's right to distribute the commands of the consuls and prae- 
tors, without any power of interposition being allowed to the tri- 
bunes, provided the distribution should be made before the elec- 
tion of these magistrates, and while it was unknown on whom the 
choice should fall. But this law only referred to the appoint- 
ment for the conduct of warlike operations. 

The whole review of the Roman government, as regards the 
magistracy and assemblies, shows how large a portion of its 
functions was performed by the latter, how inconsiderable in com- 
parison by the former. The administrative as well as legislative 
power resided substantially in those bodies. It is enough to cite 
as an instance the first appearance of Cicero before the assembly 
of the tribes. It was in support of the Manilian law, and gave 
rise to one of his most exquisite orations. That law was simply a 
resolution that the command of the war against Mithridates 
should be taken from the pro-consul Lucullus, and given to 
Pompey, who was then with an army in Cilicia, upon another 
expedition. It cannot be doubted that this mode of carrying on 
a government, exposed as it is to various most serious objections, 
and among others to that of preventing any certain rules of con- 
duct being prescribed, and of opening a wide door to oppression 
and abuse, has one great recommendation in times of difficulty, 
provided the people are not divided by party. Nothing tends 
more to inspire animation and vigour into the public councils, and 
promote the execution of whatever designs may be formed. It is 
in its nature a revolutionary kind of government, and, with all the 
evils, it possesses the advantages of that course of proceeding. 

l 2 



148 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. XII. 

Rome was so constantly engaged in wars which placed her ex- 
istence in peril, that for many ages she might be said to be in a 
revolutionary state. The combination, however, was not confined 
to tin; legislative and administrative powers. The judicial functions 
Were also too often interfered with by the assemblies; and for 
this no excuse can be offered upon any principle, or in any circum- 
stances which would not justify the suspension of all law during 
some extraordinary and momentous crisis. 

Hitherto we have spoken only of secular or civil offices. But 
the religion of the State was at all times a most important part of 
its policy ; it was entirely subordinate to the government, and 
formed a part of it. There were originally four pontiffs or high 
priests, and a chief (Pontifex Maximum). The king had been 
high priest, though not supreme in religious matters. On the 
expulsion of the Tarquins, a king for sacrifices {Rex sacrorum or 
sacrificialis) was created, whose wife was a priestess and had the 
title of queen ; but he was under the chief pontiff. The number 
of pontiffs continued to be four till the year 453, when for the 
first time the plebeians obtained the right of filling that office, and 
four plebeian pontiffs were added. Until 649 the college itself 
filled up all vacancies, when by the Domitian law the election was 
given to the tribes, seventeen of whom being chosen by lot, their 
majority named the pontiffs ; and this continued until Sylla re- 
stored the rights of the college, and doubled its numbers, among 
his other laws in favour of the aristocracy. The Domitian law 
was revived in 690 in favour of Julius Caesar, whom the people 
elected and made chief pontiff, that place being vacant by death. 
The choice of chief pontiff among those who were already pon- 
tiffs appears always to have been with the tribes; and it was 
always an office for life. Until the year 500 no plebeian ever 
held it. All priests were subject to the pontiff: they could ap- 
point any one to the priesthood against his will ; and the more 
powerful priests, as those of Jupiter and Mars, attended the col- 
lege of pontiffs. But the pontiffs were themselves subject to the 
jurisdiction of the comitia, although the interference seldom took 
place. The college had, beside its superintendence of temples, 
ceremonies, festivals, and the calendar, jurisdiction in certain 
matrimonial causes ; and their consent was required for the adop- 
tion of children. The qualifications for the priesthood consisted 
in freedom from personal defect, and in there being no other 



CH. XII.] AUGURS HARUSPICES- SIBYLLINE BOORS. 149 

member of the same family in the same college. Moral character 
and mature age were not required. The dissolute in manners and 
the young men of seventeen could hold, as Julius Caesar did, the 
office of High Priest of Jupiter. 

The College of Augurs was, next to the pontiffs, the most 
important religious body; but its functions were confined to ob- 
serving the signs supposed to be given of good or bad fortune, 
from the flight of birds, and from the manner of feeding of those 
kept as sacred by the State. Any sinister appearance gave the 
augurs the power of interfering with whatever proceeding, civil or 
military, they were pleased to interrupt. As men of opposite 
parties held the office, and their conduct must therefore have 
been watched, it may be inferred that there were certain rules or 
principles laid down to guide these absurd decisions. In the year 
453 the place of augur was opened with that of pontiff to the 
plebeians, and five were added to the former number of four. 
Sylla added six more. The College originally filled up the va- 
cancies in its numbers ; but the Domitian law introduced the same 
mode of election as in the case of pontiffs; and that law, after 
being repealed by Sylla, was restored in 690. 

The haruspices were a lower kind of augur, but forming no sepa- 
rate body, and having apparently no commission. They were irre- 
gular, and might for money be consulted by any one. They were 
held in great contempt by rational and respectable persons, though 
frequently consulted even by these. As there was absolutely no 
difference in their art, except that they examined the entrails of 
birds, and the augurs observed their flight and feeding, nothing 
can be more strange than the different estimation in which they 
were held, their science being precisely the same. 

The only other religious fraternity which requires to be men- 
tioned is that of the decemviri, and afterwards, in Sylla' s time, the 
quindecemviri, for the custody of the Sibylline books, which they 
were not allowed to consult without an order of the senate. These 
books, which the legendary history represents to have been sold 
by a prophetess to one of the kings, probably contained nothing 
but directions for prayers and sacrifices. But the reports of what 
was found in them on any given occasion, had often the effect of 
controlling or encouraging the people. The plebeians were ad- 
mitted into this body in the year 386. The appointment was 



150 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [oil. XII. 

made in the same way and underwent the same changes as that 
of the pontiffs and augurs. 

The entire control which the patricians had of the auguries and 
auspices greatly increased their authority with the people, until 
the plebeians were also admitted to the religious offices. But 
even after that change had taken place, the same superstition 
was constantly used to maintain the influence of the government, 
and also in the armies, to control or excite the troops. There is, 
however, a thing wholly unintelligible in all this if there were no 
principles or rules by which the augur was guided. That all 
parties should agree in showing reverence for the religion, and 
those who disbelieved, as well as those who had faith in it, can 
easily be understood ; but that of conflicting parties one should 
allow the other to invent omens for its discomfiture, and that a 
person hostile to the college, when admitted to a knowledge of the 
gross impositions practised, should take no advantage of the dis- 
covery he had made, appears very hard to explain on any sup- 
position except that, of there having really been some general rules 
which were more or less followed by all. 

With the exception of the military department under the con- 
suls, and the legislative in the bands of the senate and the comitia, 
in which the magistrates acting as legislators, the whole duties 
of these magistracy were of a judicial description. The judicial 
system was somewhat complicated. In cases of treason the comitia 
centuriata decided ; in cases which were punishable only with fine, 
the tributa. Trials were either private, that is, questions of civil 
right and injury, including minor offences; or public, that is, 
questions affecting the state, including the graver criminal cases. 
Beside the presiding magistrate, there appear always to have 
been a certain number of judges (judices). For this purpose a 
number of judices were annually selected from the body which by 
law was possessed of the privilege. The senate had it exclusively 
till the year 620 : it was then transferred, at the sedition of the 
Gracchi, to the Equestrian order, with whom it remained for six- 
teen years, and it was then given to the senate and them jointly, 
three hundred being taken from each. The plebeians then 
obtained the right of adding a certain number from each tribe. 
Sylla, desiring to restore the power of the senate, which in that 
age had been exceedingly reduced, restored by his laws (Leges 



CH. XII.] JUDICIAL SYSTEM. 151 

Comelice) the sole privilege to that body. At his death the 
Aurelian law divided this privilege among the senate, equites, and 
paymasters (tribuni cBrarii), numerous plebeian officers who had 
the care of paying the troops; and finally Julius Caesar restored 
the exclusive power to the senate and equestrian order, with whom 
it remained. The praetor annually appointed four hundred and 
fifty of these two orders,, and, according to the nature of the case, 
a certain number of these were chosen either by lot or by what 
was called editio exhlbitus, that is, by the one party selecting 
one hundred., from whom the other chose fifty. Beside these 
judices there were centumviri, that is^ one hundred and five, 
chosen five by each tribe, and supposed to be acquainted with the 
law. In cases before the praetor, if he felt a doubt upon the law, 
he referred the matter to the centumviri; if upon the fact, he 
referred it to one or more of the judices to examine. Upon the 
report of either, or both bodies, he pronounced his decree ; and if 
he felt no doubt either on the law or the fact, he decided at once 
himself. The similarity of this to the practice of our courts of 
equity is striking ; and as the account is taken from an author 
who wrote in the sixteenth century, and long before our present 
practice was established, no suspicion can arise of his having fancied 
the course of proceeding.* A power of challenging the judices, 
as drawn by lot, was given to each party. 

Originally the supreme criminal jurisdiction was in the kings, 
and the consuls for a short time succeeded to this; but their juris- 
diction was reckoned by the Valerian law, which gave an appeal to 
the people, that is to the tribes, and still more by the Horatian law 
half a century after (a.u.c. 304), which made it a capital offence 
to create any magistrate without appeal. The administration of 
criminal justice until the year 604 appears to have been confided in 
each case specially by decrees of the senate to the higher magis- 
trates, consuls, praetors, and dictators, who were armed with the 
high judicial power called jus qucestionis — under the empire called 
merum imperium — which concluded all cases affecting the life or 
the civic rights of citizens, and the power of examining slaves by 
torture. Qucesitores parricidii were also appointed occasionally 
to try murder and other grave offences. Perpetual and regular 
criminal jurisdiction of this kind was only given to those magis- 
trates in that year. Beside these judices quaestionis there were 

* Nic. Gruch., De Com. Rom., i. 2.— C. Sig., De Judicii, u. 6, 12. 



152 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [cil. XU. 

others who had the same name, and who assisted the higher ma- 
gistrates, and attained to the office of rcdilcs. They assisted in the 
trials by superintending the choice or ballot for judices, by exa- 
mining accounts and documents, by taking the evidence of such 

witnesses as were not examined lira voce, and taking that of 
slaves by the torture.* The presiding magistrate did not decide 
the cause, he only applied and carried into execution the law; 
the judices gave the verdict, and upon that the magistrate pro- 
nounced the sentence and saw it executed. The judic a were 
sworn, except in one kind of cause, divinatio,\ or determining 
the title of parties to prosecute a suit, and they voted by ballot. 
Originally, they voted openly; the ballot was introduced in the 
year 6G6 for all but cases of treason, and soon after for these also, 
A judge {judex) was allowed, if he pleased, to vote openly, and 
CatO did so in Milo's case, being one of the minority of thirteen 
who were for an acquittal. As at all times a law could be easily 
obtained for an extraordinary trial, or trial by a special tribunal, 
so the course of procedure was sometimes entirely changed by 
the same law — a natural consequence of the manner of governing, 
of carrying on the executive government by the means of laws or 
decrees which the legislative body made for each case. In Milo's 
case Pompey obtained a law, directing that out of four hundred 
w r hom he should choose from the senate, equites, or paymasters 
(tribuni cerari'i), eighty- one should be taken by lot; and that, 
after they had heard the cause, each party should challenge five 
from each class, reducing the number to fifty-one. The law also 
named a special judge, who filled no office ; and it required the 
evidence to be taken first, during three days, then the cause to be 
argued, allowing the prosecutor two hours, and the defendant 
three. It is by some authorities maintained that this law, though 
in-tended for one case, was applied generally ; and Tacitus^ (if the 
treatise be his) gives it as one cause of the downfall of eloquence. 
Nothing could tend more to impair the judicial system and 
to introduce abuses into all its parts, than the combination of the 
legislative with judicial office; and the practice to which it gave 
rise of making a law, or ordinance in the nature of a law, for each 

* The opinion that they were not magistrates at all, but private persons, is fully re- 
futed by C. Sigonius, De Jud., ii. 5. The notion probably arose from confounding 
them with the quajsitors. 

■f The dispute which frequently arises in our courts of equity as to who shall have 
the management of a suit, or the carriage of a commission, is properly a divinatio. 

X De Causis Corruptae Eloquentia?. 



CH. XII.] SPECIAL JUDICIAL LAWS. 153 

case of any moment. Until the year 604 every thing was done 
by these special laws ; each trial being directed by a particular 
order of the senate or the comitia. Even after the regular tribu- 
nals were established, the interference of legislative acts was per- 
petual. Now, if there be anything more undeniable than an- 
other in jurisprudence, it is, that the door for misdecision and 
injustice can never be opened more wide than by making rules 
for trying the particular case instead of general prospective re- 
gulations. In truth, such special laws are always more or less 
retrospective, and for this reason full of abuse and oppression. 
But if it were only that they are sure to be dictated by partial 
considerations, and not by enlarged views, this would be enough 
to prove them a fruitful source of error. It may safely be 
affirmed that a general law laid down by a body little entitled to 
respect, and even swayed by sinister views, would be a far better 
rule to guide both the parties and the judges, than a resolution 
taken by a far more trustworthy authority, upon the spur of the 
occasion, and to meet its peculiar exigencies. The allowing our 
Houses of Parliament to define their privileges by resolutions on 
each case as it occurs would be a far more certain means of 
working injustice to the people, and finally of destroying the inde- 
pendence of Parliament itself, than the adoption of a general rule 
of law to be administered by judges who do not take their opi- 
nions upon it from the facts of the case, but from previous and un- 
biassed consideration of the subject. The same circumstance in the 
nature and practice of the government, the union of executive and 
legislative powers in the same body, occasioned at Rome many 
trials for offences of a political nature especially to be had before 
the people, by what we should term impeachment. The general 
rule was that the crimes against the state, treason or sedition, and 
peculation, including extortion (concussio), alone should be tried 
before the comitia, and that all others should be tried by the ordi- 
nary judges, or by commissioners (quaesitors) appointed specially. 
But there are few offences which we do not find to have been tried 
by the people in the Way of extraordinary or special inquiry {cogni- 
tiones ex traor dinar ice), and this not only in the earlier times, but 
at all periods of the commonwealth, though less frequently in the 
later. In 302, P. Sestius was tried in the comitia on a charge of 
murder, a body having been found in his garden (Liv. iii. 33) ; 
Fulvius, in 426, for adultery (lb. viii. 22); Scantinus, a plebeian 



154 CONSTITUTION OF ROME. [CH. XII. 

tribune, in 527, for infamous and unchaste conduct (Val. Max. 
vi. 1. 7). After the establishment of regular courts in 604, the 
comitia ordered Vestal virgins to be put to death, though the 
pontiffs had acquitted them, and censured these pontiffs; and 
in 690 Silus was tried for endeavouring to seduce a matron 
by the offer of money (Val. Max. vi. 1. 8). This jurisdiction 
was exereised by the centuries in cases which involved the life 
or rights of citizens (capital cases). The tribes could only try 
for offences punishable by fine, though they sometimes, as in the 
case of Cicero's banishment, assumed also jurisdiction in the 
higher cases ; and once, in that of Coriolanus, were authorised to 
try treason. The truth is, that from the union of legislative with 
judicial power, it was hardly possible to confine the different 
bodies to their several provinces. The senate itself, though only 
in later times, appears to have superseded the law, and sometimes, 
as in Catiline's case, to have awarded outlawry and capital pu- 
nishment. 

Certain forms were observed in the mode of trial, especially as 
to the citations and notices, and the time allowed before trial; 
but in the decision the same mode of voting was pursued as in 
making laws or choosing magistrates, that is, by centuries or by 
tribes, according as the trial was before one comitia or the other; 
and after the year 666 the vote was by ballot. Before that time, 
the comitia, which voted by ballot on all other matters, had voted 
openly in judicial proceedings. 






ch. xiii.] 155 



CHAPTER XIII. 

REFLECTIONS ON THE HOMAN CONSTITUTION. 



Progress of Democracy — Carmleius —Address of the Patricians — Distinction of the 
Orders obliterated — New Aristocratic distinctions — New Plebeian body ; their base- 
ness — Operation of Party — Plebeians at different periods — Virtues of the old Ple- 
beians ; contrast of the new — Savage character ; warlike habits — Massacres of 
Marius — Cicero — Julius Caesar — Corruption of the People — Canvassing ; Treating ; 
Bribery — Sale of Votes; Divisores; Ambitus; Sodalitum — Bribery Laws — Unpaid 
Magistracy — Popular patronage and corruption — Peculatus ; Repetundae — Popular 
corruption — Factions ; Civil War — Overthrow of the Commonwealth — Conduct of 
the Aristocracy — Aristocracy and Princes — Error of the Patricians — American War ; 
Irish Independence — Roman Parties — Conduct of the People — Roman Yeomanry — 
Moderate use of power — Natural Aristocracy — Orders new moulded — West Indian 
Society — Aristocracy of Middle Classes — Power useless to an uneducated People — 
Checks on the People— Checks in general — Delay and Notice; English proceedings 
— Factious men at Rome uncontrolled — Catiline's Conspiracy — Cicero's conduct — 
Middleton's error. 

Such was the constitution which, from monarchical and repub- 
lican mixed together, had become aristocratic, but in the course 
of less than a hundred years was republican again. In fact, after 
the tribuneship had become established, and the legislative right of 
the tributa was recognised, there wanted nothing to bring about 
the change but the acknowledgment of the plebeians being 
entitled to hold the higher offices of the state, in like manner 
as their right to appoint inferior magistrates had been recognised. 
In the year 308, Canuleius having obtained the important con- 
cession of the right of marriage with the patricians, attempted 
the admission of the plebeians to the consulship; but matters 
were not yet ripe for so great a change, and the patricians evaded 
the demand by appointing military tribunes with consular power, 
to be chosen from both orders alike; and they created the office 
of censor, to be held by patricians alone, with a view to take 
a large portion of the consular power, so as to give the plebeians 
far less than the rest of the change appeared to bestow. But 
in 402, soon after the legislative pow T er had been obtained by 
the tribes, the censorship was opened to the plebeians; they 
had some time before (397) obtained the curule sedileship, which 
with the prsetorship had been created for the purpose of diminish- 
ing the consular jurisdiction; and in 417 the plebeians also 



156 INFLECTIONS ON THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. [CH. XIII. 

obtained the praetorship. The Licinian Rogations, too, which 
had been evaded cliiefly by the appointment of dictators, and 
by the oppressive conduct of creditors, became really operative 
in 414. In 453 the plebeians were made eligible as pontiffs 
and augurs. So many of them became magistrates, or be- 
longed to the equestrian order, that after the second Punic war 
in the 6th century there were more plebeian than patrician se- 
nators. The two consuls in one year, 581, were plebeian — the two 
censors in another, 622. So that the former distinction of the 
orders into patrician and plebeian no longer existed to any prac- 
tical purpose, the only preponderance being that which is pos- 
sessed by wealth, by illustrious birth, or by nobility — which 
consisted at Rome in having a right to statues, either of the party 
himself or of his ancestors, in consequence of their having filled 
curule offices. 

A change had gradually, but entirely been effected in the com- 
position of the orders. The commons (plebs), which at first 
were the inhabitants, small landowners born free, and generally 
of free parents, but of families originally foreign, and not of the 
original free and native Romans, had afterwards so increased in 
numbers, and so risen in importance, from the wealth of some 
and the merits, chiefly warlike, of others, that they both acquired 
great consideration in the community, and had many families 
distinguished by a succession of magistrates, and were thus en- 
nobled, in the Roman sense of the term. It was between this 
great body and the patricians that the contest chiefly was carried 
on, and the success of the plebeians had been complete. But 
the more respectable portion of the plebeian body by degrees 
separated itself from the rest, and every one was ranked accord- 
ing to his own circumstances and those of his family, without any 
regard to w T hether he was born of a house that belonged to the 
one order or the other. The lower orders as distinguished 
from the higher — those who had come to fill the place originally 
occupied by the plebs, as contradistinguished from the patricians 
— were now either freedmen, or aliens unprotected by any patron, 
or the spurious issue of the better classes, or such as by their 
misconduct or misfortune had fallen into abject poverty; and, 
according to all the accounts which have reached us, a more base, 
profligate, and desperate multitude never existed in any part of 
the world. They differed almost as much from the commons of 
older times as they did from the more respectable order of citizens 



CH. XIII.] PLEBEIANS AT DIFFERENT PERIODS. 157 

in their own day. It was by appeals to their passions, by cor- 
rupting them and by exciting them, that the leaders of parties 
were enabled to use their numbers, armed as they all were, and 
habituated to war, to use them in the bloody conflicts by which 
the republic was first disgraced and then overturned. The parties 
which thus tore the community in pieces were now only in name 
patrician and plebeian ; the leaders, and a great portion of those 
who joined them, were indiscriminately of all orders and all de- 
grees, except the rabble ; and the rabble formed the common 
stock from which those patrons drew their supplies of armed 
followers, mere tools or instruments in their hands. Principles, 
as never fails to happen, were adopted merely as the rallying 
cries or watch-words of faction ; and though Sylla was of a patri- 
cian, and Marius of a plebeian and very humble family, the one 
cared as little for the preponderance of the senate as the other did 
for that of the tribes. But the sanguinary disposition of the whole 
people had a principal share in these enormities, and in the final 
catastrophe to which they led. It was the habit of constant war 
for centuries that formed this character, and the republican insti- 
tutions had no share in producing it. 

The original structure and character of the plebeian body was 
of a peculiarly estimable kind. It would be difficult to find any 
*great vice in it save the fondness for war, naturally incident to a 
rude state of society, and which, at Rome, was perpetuated by 
the whole institutions being formed upon a military principle. — 
the work of the patricians, whose wealth and pow T er depended 
mainly upon the progress of conquest. But the people were a 
body of very small landowners, whose lives, when not engaged in 
war, passed in cultivating their fields and gardens, in attending 
religious ceremonies, and occasionally partaking the amusement 
of rustic games. They may be said to have been a yeomanry 
living in and near a great city. Their frugality was strict ; their 
course of life sober and chaste; their honesty and good faith 
unvaried ; their fortitude exemplary ; their reverence for the laws 
and customs of the state religious ; and their veneration for their 
gods and the observances taught by their superstitions so habitual, 
that it became a part of their nature, and only wanted the lights 
of a purer faith to make it deserving of the highest respect to which 
the religious character can be entitled. Unhappily there was 
early inculcated upon their minds a belief that the glory of the 
community, by which was meant the extension of its dominions, 



158 REFLECTIONS ON THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. [cH. XIII* 

formed the only object worth pursuing, and that each man's virtue 
and his value was proportioned to the share he might have in pro- 
moting it. The whole people were soldiers ; the whole country a 
camp ; and the gains of the system becoming at first the sole pro- 
perty of the patricians, and at all times theirs in an extremely un- 
due proportion, the people fought, and suffered, and perished for 
the profit, of this heartless body, much more than for any interest 
of their own. But the consequence of the system was to diffuse 
through all classes a hard and unfeeling disposition, a disregard of 
all suffering, whether of ourselves or of others, a contempt of death, 
and a familiarity with scenes of bloodshed, which never spread so 
wide or took so deep a root in any other extensive community. 
This inhuman character survived even to the most polished times. 
Slaves were not only tortured to extort their testimony, but killed 
for the pastime of their masters. Foreign princes taken in war 
were sometimes, as in Jugurtha's case, loaded with chains and 
left to perish in a dungeon, or put to more instant death as a 
part of the ceremonial at a triumph. The amphitheatres were 
filled by persons of all ranks and of both sexes to witness the de- 
struction of their fellow- creatures by each other's hands or by wild 
beasts hardly more ferocious than themselves, and the audience 
frequently gave the command that the life of a vanquished com- 
batant should not be spared. It was at a very late period of the 
commonwealth, and when Cicero had grown up to manhood, nay, 
not twenty-five years before his consulship, that the atrocious pro- 
scriptions of Sylla were perpetrated, and the far more horrible 
massacres with which Marius feasted his eyes for five days and 
five nights while on the brink of the grave ; and the great moralist 
and patriot, himself of the most humane dispositions, though he 
repeatedly in his philosophical writings expresses, not very 
strongly, the feelings unavoidably raised by one of his enormities, 
yet hardly ventured even tenderly to blame them when addressing 
the people a few years later upon the subject of the massacres, 
and while their memory was still fresh in the minds of all ; and he 
pronounced on another occasion, before the judges themselves, a 
magnificent panegyric upon the monster, without making the least 
exception of the scenes that closed his sanguinary life.* 

* In the Tusc. Quaest., v. 19, referring to the savage command of Marius, often 
repeated, to put Catulus, his companion in the Cimbrian victory, to death, Cicero 
uses the expressions, "nefaria vox " and " scelerata,"' and says that Marius, "interitu 
talis vm," overwhelmed the fame of his six consulships, and stained the close of his 
Hfe. He says nothing of the thousands whom the wretch had made be put to death 



CH. XIII.] SANGUINARY CHARACTER OF THE ROMANS. 159 

Next to the sanguinary habits formed by their devotion to war, 
the corruption of the people by the abuses of their government 
was the most important of the remote causes of the common- 
wealth's destruction. The votes of persons in a low condition 
were necessary to the obtaining of the inferior offices through 
which political leaders rose to the prsetorship and consulship, be- 
cause these inferior offices were bestowed by the comitia tributa.* 

before his eyes. In the De Nat. Deor., iii. 32, he makes one of the speakers in the 
dialogue argue against the existence of a providence, from Marius dying in his bed at an 
advanced age, and a seventh time consul, after the man, "omnium perfidiosissimus," 
had, not massacred thousands, but ordered Catulus, " a man of the highest station," to 
be killed. In the De Or., iii. 2, he mentions " Marii caedem crudelissimam," but it 
is after deploring his " acerbissimam fugam;" and in the De R. P., i. 3, though 
he calls it "acerbissima clades," he adds "principum caedes," clearly showing what 
it was that he mainly regarded. In the oration to the people (Post Eeditum, 8) he 
contrasts Marius's vengeance after his return with the peaceful conduct he meant him- 
self to pursue, but without at all blaming him ; and in the oration to the judges (20), 
pro Balbo, he describes him as the disciple of Scipio Africanus, and asks, " Quaeris 
aliquem graviorem ? constantiorem ? praestantiorem virtute, prudentia, religione, 
sequitateT' This was not above thirty years aftey the massacre. In what other civi- 
lised part of the world could such a man have been so spoken of in a court of justice, 
when the recollection of his atrocities was yet as fresh in the minds of all men, as if 
they had been perpetrated the day before ? This speech, it must be recollected, was 
made in the year 697, long after the judicial body had been, by the law of Julius 
Caesar, restoring Sylla's constitution (694), confined to the senators and equestrian 
order, excluding the plebeian magistrates (tribuni aerarii), and settling the administra- 
tion of justice upon a regular plan, touching the age and qualifications of the judges, 
as well as the whole course of judicial proceedings taken. But the whole of their 
history is full of similar proofs how rooted in the minds and habits of the people were 
cruelty of disposition and carelessness of human life. No man in any other country 
could have treated Milo as a model of patriotism and excellence, and almost a martyr 
to his party, when it was admitted that, however the affray began, he had ordered his 
servants to put the wounded man to death, and that they had also killed the keeper 
of the tavern into which he had been carried. In no other country could one of 
Brutus's high character have published a speech in which he admitted the facts, and 
defended Milo on the ground of Clodius being a public enemy — a defence which 
Cicero had judiciously rejected, at the consultation of Milo's friends. The bare fact 
of Milo travelling with a band of gladiators, desperate ruffians proverbially ready for 
any slaughter, is an illustration of the manners of the age and nation. What respect- 
able man could in any other place have had such an attendance? The savage tumult 
excited to oppose Cicero's return from banishment is another illustration. It seems to 
have made but little sensation, and caused no horror. Clodius and the actors in it 
were suffered to go unpunished — as might happen here at every trifling election riot ; — 
and yet so many were killed in it that " the forum flowed with blood — the Tiber and 
the sewers were filled with dead, and such masses of these had never been seen in the 
city, except in Marius's massacres. Cic. pro Lep., 35 to 38. Julius Caesar, himself 
the mildest and most generous of men, thought it no shame to avow that his wars cost 
1.200,000 lives. 

* In the latter times of the Commonwealth that which had been always the custom 
became required by positive enactment. One of Sylla's laws prohibited any one from 
being chosen consul who had not been praetor, or praetor who had not been quaestor. 



1()0 REFLECTIONS ON THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. [CH. XIII. 

But the centuries were to be gained as well as the tribes ; for though 
the eomitia centuriata, when opposed to the tribes, and when not 
divided among themselves, were so arranged as to exclude all the 
numerous and poorer classes from any share in ihe decision, yet 
when the question lay between opposing candidates of whatever 
order, the votes of all the four inferior classes became as important 
as those of the first, their centuries deciding when the smaller, 
but more numerous centuries of the wealthy could not agree. 
Thus was introduced, with the view of obtaining both the higher 
and the inferior offices, the practice of both courting, or as we 
should say canvassing, the multitude, and also of giving them the 
entertainments of public shows, which they so highly prized. To 
this was soon added the treating, or giving them dinners. Then 
came the distribution of provisions, and finally of money. Though 
these practices began with the tribes, they were extended to the 
centuries also. The law allowed much of this corruption ; and 
one candidate (Crassus) gave an entertainment at which ten 
thousand tables were served, so that the whole people partook of 
it, and each also received a donation in money. The most open 
and profligate bribery succeeded ; .it became undisguised and 
universal. Votes were openly sold ; tables or shops were opened 
in the public places for the traffic ; there were persons who carried 
on the business of providing votes as undertakers ; there were 
others (divisor es) whose profession it was to distribute the candi- 
date's money ; others, as a kind of stakeholders, received it in 
deposit till the votes were given. Against this general corruption 
laws were early made, but were found unavailing. As early as 
the year 321 the senate proposed to put down canvassing, by 
prohibiting any one from appearing in the white or candidate's 
dress. In 395 the soliciting votes was strictly prohibited, in order 
to prevent it from being done at fairs and other meetings. It was 
at a later period made capital, that is, punishable with banish- 
ment (571 and 594), to purchase offices, that is, to bribe the 
electors (Polyb. vi. 54). In 604 tribunals were created solely for 
trying offences against the freedom and purity of elections. One 
to try bribery (ambitus), another to try acts of violence (vis), 
another to try combination or conspiracy (yodalitiam) , but all in 
vain. At one time the tribes made a law so severe that the senate 
judiciously objected, and desired it to be reconsidered, on the 
ground that no party would be found to prosecute, and no judge 



CH. XIII ] BRIBERY TREATING. 16 L 

to condemn. They therefore proposed, through the consuls, as 
more effectual, a mitigated law of fine and disqualification, with 
rewards to prosecutors and a prohibition of the traffic in votes ; but 
the same year Sylla and his colleague were convicted of gross and 
extensive bribery, and removed from the consulship. The penalty 
of ten years' banishment for treating, giving shows, and hiring 
armed mobs, was then inflicted : first by a S. C, and then by 
a law which Cicero prevailed upon the comitia to pass. But so 
little did it check the practice, that soon after (a.u.c. 700) the 
violence of the candidates and their mobs prevented any choice of 
consuls for six months. Nay, to so great a height had corrup- 
tion proceeded, and so hopeless did the cure of the evil appear, 
that Cato himself approved, on one remarkable occasion, of the 
senators raising a sum among themselves to enable the candidate 
whom they favoured for the consulship to outbid his adversary in 
bribing the centuries.* 

It is not to be denied that much of the corruption of which we 
have been speaking must be traced to the pernicious practice of 
allowing the magistrate's emoluments to depend, not upon an 
adequate provision directly and avowedly made for his support, 
but upon other advantages to which he might, look as incidental 
to his office. The magistracies, through which men passed to the 
prsetorship and consulate, were rather expensive than lucrative, 
from the theatrical exhibitions, which were part of the ^Edile's 
duties, and the largesses to poor citizens, expected from all office- 
bearers. The fortunes made by praetorian and consular com- 
mands, and especially when the provinces became numerous and 
wealthy, formed the great temptation both to avarice and ambi- 
tion, and these were regarded as the sure source of wealth and 
power. The profits of the quaestors were in all probability also 
considerable. It was to obtain such prizes that the fortunes of the 
patricians were expended, and that debts were incurred, as a 
speculation certain to repay all that might be advanced, provided 
the bribing was successful in securing the place, f 

* Julius Caesar had promised a sum to each voter, in order to secure the election of a 
colleague, whom the senators expected to become his tool. They therefore offered the 
same sum on the part of Bibulus. 

f M. Beaufort (Rep. Rom., torn. i. p. 428), while he admits that "all ancient 
authors keep a profound silence on the emoluments of each office," has no doubt that 
each was provided with an ample salary. The mere fact of no mention being any where 
made of this seems strongly to negative its existence — the passages which he cites for the 

PART II. M 



162 REFLECTIONS ON THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. [CH. XIII. 

The practice of bribing appears to have kept exact pace with 
tlw advance or abatement of the patronage in the hands of the 
people. Julius Caesar recommended both consuls, and half the 
other office-bearers, and substantially named them : bribery- 
became less frequent. Augustus restored the election to the 
people, and with it bribery increased; insomuch that, finding the 
punishment of five years' disability with a pecuniary forfeiture in- 
effectual, and being desirous to prevent it — at least in the two 
tribes in which he was enrolled — he could only do so by himself 
distributing as much money among the members of those bodies 
as the candidates offered. The same state of things continued 
until Tiberius gave the elective power to the senate, which was 
then only exercised nominally, and his successors avowedly filled 
up all offices themselves. Bribery was now confined to the pro- 
vincial towns (municipia) and colonies, where the people still 
appointed. 

The corruption of the people extended to those in the upper 
classes. The peculation (peculatus) and extortion (repctundee) of 
persons in office became universally and openly practised. The 
trials before the comitia tributa, which frequently took place, and 
the erection of special tribunals a.u.c. 604 to try these offences, had 
little effect. The punishment, indeed, of restitution, sometimes 
double or treble, which always till the latter end of the common- 
wealth was inflicted for these offences, appears not to have stamped 
them with any infamy. Lentulus, two years after his conviction 
of extortion in the year 606, was made censor, to watch over the 
morals of the people and the purity of their magistrates. Under 
the empire the punishment was exile, and the vigour of the govern- 
ment appears to have somewhat checked the practice. No society 
can be conceived more corrupted or more hardened, of principles 
more loose, or of feelings more despicable and callous, than that 
of Rome towards the termination of the commonwealth. It only 
required such desperate leaders as did not long delay appearing 
to destroy the whole system, by arraying against each other bodies 
of a rabble whom the habits of war had made as cruel as the 



most part would seem to authorise an opposite conclusion. Thus, Livy saying that the 
consul's camp equipage was furnished by the state, if it proves anything, is rather 
against the supposition of a large salary ; and as to Cicero living in splendour, though 
horn to a small fortune, and refusing all governments, no one can he ignorant of the 
vast profits which he made hy the exercise of his most lucrative profession. 



CH. XIII.] ' FACTION — CIVIL WAR DESPOTISM. 163 

conflicts of faction had rendered them turbulent, and the unprin- 
cipled acts of their patrician superiors had taught them to be 
venal. 

The hiring soldiers from the rabble of the city was first prac- 
tised in Marius's time, and had the most fatal effect upon the 
constitution. Nothing tended more to maintain the conflicts be- 
tween the two parties which divided the community — that of Sylla 
or the senate, and that of Marius or the commons ; and to their 
civil wars succeeded the more regular and sustained contests 
between Pompey and Caesar. The state was now exhausted by 
the sanguinary game of the factions ; foreign conquests rapidly 
increased, arming the leaders with new treasures and new forces, 
and no resistance was made to whatever chief, having gained the 
greater military power, chose to use it for establishing his own 
dominion on the ruins of the republican constitution. The forms 
of the old government were, alone preserved: Julius, and after 
him Augustus Caesar, obtaining the votes of the subservient senate 
and comitia, were created sometimes consul, sometimes perpetual 
dictator, and ruled under those titles, and with the assent of the 
public bodies. But their real power was wholly derived from the 
troops in their pay, and they were succeeded by princes, who, 
ruling by the same means, extinguished the very name of liberty, 
and practised a tyranny which has in all ages been regarded as 
the most profligate and detestable ever known in an advanced 
state of society. 

The successive changes in the Roman government, and the 
struggles which first led to them, then were increased by them, 
may easily be explained by attending to the operation of the 
aristocratic principle and the improvident conduct of the patrician 
body. In the earliest period of the monarchy the power was in 
the hands of the whole free native people, with an elective chief, 
and no plebeian body having yet been formed, he could not find 
a balance to the power of the people, that is, the patricians. 
The Constitution was now more republican than monarchical ; 
certainly it could with no accuracy of language be called aris- 
tocratic. When the plebeian order became numerous in propor- 
tion to the patricians, the latter retained their ascendant, and not- 
withstanding occasional attempts of the king to court the com- 
mons, he did not succeed in curbing the privileged body; the 
government was now aristocratic. The patricians and plebeians 

m 2 



104 REFLECTIONS ON THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. [CH. XIII. 

combined to dethrone the king, and for a short time acted in con- 
cert ; but the domineering spirit of the aristocracy soon broke out 
into new excesses, and their power being much augmented by the 
revolution, their oppression of the poor, but numerous and increas- 
ing, order became greater than ever. They committed the error, 
fatal to all privileged classes, of forgetting that while their own 
numbers are nearly stationary, and their progress in wealth is 
limited and slow, the mass of the community increases rapidly, 
and its wealth becomes proportionally extended; but they still 
more omitted in their calculation a circumstance peculiar to Rome, 
that the whole nation being military, and all its occupation war, 
the force of the multitude must needs become overwhelming, and 
that any attempt must be hopeless to deprive them of their share 
in those conquests which were made by the force of their arms. 
The patricians were bent upon continuing to govern the country 
as exclusively after the commons were reckoned by hundreds of 
thousands, and the territory had stretched over and far beyond 
the neighbouring districts, as they had been suffered to do when 
the plebeians were not much more numerous than themselves, and 
the city and suburbs were the whole extent of their dominions. 
The apprehension of the commons gaining more power by what- 
ever was bestowed upon them, whether of the public lands or of 
political privileges, made the patricians adhere the more tenaci- 
ously to their exclusive rights, each concession being deemed not 
only an immediate diminution of their own power, but the means 
of still further lessening it; so that it might be impossible to tell 
where the rise of the lower, and the decline of the superior class, 
would end. This alarm at encroachments operated, as it ever 
does, to prevent them even from abandoning rights of no value 
to themselves, and allowing privileges that did not come into con- 
flict with their own ; because such changes, by augmenting the 
popular influence, would lead the way to more hurtful sacrifices 
being extorted. 

In acting upon such views an aristocracy differs not materially 
from a prince, except only that it is relieved from the checks 
of fear and reputation which individual responsibility imposes, 
and except also that a body often is swayed by violent feelings 
which the contagion of numbers embitters while it propagates 
them. But in another respect the conduct of the body is 
always worse than that of the individual. Oppression, where it 



CH. XIII.] ARISTOCRACY. 165 

tends to no end, is apt to be exercised by a number of persons 
more harshly because they come personally more in contact with 
the objects of their hatred, or jealousy, or dread. At home,, ac- 
cordingly, the patrician was filled with haughty contempt and 
fierce dislike of the plebeian ; and the law which he had made 
enabled him to gratify these feelings not only against the body, 
but in crushing and tormenting individuals, his debtors. A 
single ruler becomes the more cruel from fear, knowing that he 
stands alone with the community against him; but a minority, a 
select privileged few, not only act under the influence of the same 
dread, and are equally impelled to make up by terror for the 
inequality of their natural force ; they are also the more excited 
to whatever may intimidate their adversaries by being always set 
in opposition to them, always matched and balanced against 
them, and consequently acting under a constant sense of their own 
dangers from the conflicting power being let alone. 

The Roman aristocracy was marshalled in a more especial man- 
ner by its powers being exercised, not in electing rulers, but in 
ruling of itself. When the curiae and their more select body car- 
ried on the government with the king, they were the whole patri- 
cians in a body. When the commons had their own assembly the 
opposition of the two orders became more regular and more fierce, 
and the pretensions of the patricians were the more peremptory, 
and their domination the more overbearing. The same system of 
the ruling power being exercised by the whole body had another 
most fatal effect : it prevented the wise foresight and virtuous 
moderation of a few leading men from having its due weight with 
the bulk of their order, and gave to the course pursued that cha- 
racter of violence, impatience, and irreflection, which too often be- 
longs to the proceedings of the multitude. The inevitable necessity 
of concessions being granted too late to compulsion and through 
fear, it they were not in due season given with a good grace, never 
once appears to have been present to the patrician's mind. He 
always thought and acted as if his order could retain its predomi- 
nance, and as if the plebeians were never to increase in power. A 
single ruler or a select body of counsellors would, in all proba- 
bility, have granted some share of the public lands in the time of 
Spurius Cassius, but the patrician body put him to death as a 
traitor for the bare proposal. When Licinius renewed the attempt 
it was evident that in the end some measure of the kind usl be 



166 REFLECTIONS OX THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. [CH. XIII. 

carried, and almost ;is evident that by timely concession much 
of the hostile feeling might ho allayed which both filled the state 
with sedition, put its existence once and again into jeopardy, and 
ended in Car more power being given than any one at first thought 
of demanding. But the patricians were inflexible, and when com- 
pelled to yield in outward appearance, defeated the measure by 
such chicanery as brought on new struggles and higher demands. 
It was only in times of great public danger, or by proceedings 
which amounted to open resistance, that the commons could gain 
any of their rights : by refusing to serve at one time when there 
was a formidable war, or by leaving the city in a body at another 
critical period. The patricians never acted as if the people were 
daily growing in strength, and themselves stationary ; they forgot 
that it is as impossible to keep a whole nation in pupilage, as to 
keep a man in leading-strings; they were not aware that their 
true interest required them so to treat the people while under 
their control, as 10 postpone the period of their emancipation by 
the influence of kindly treatment, and to secure a mutual good 
understanding when at length the period should arrive. 

If, in the American war and in the conflict with Ireland, there had 
been only a prince and his ministers, without a popular assembly 
to consult, it cannot be doubted that for a while the same results 
would have followed among ourselves. But it may be reasonably 
questioned whether anything but the bitterness of contending 
bodies could have so long maintained the policy which lost Ame- 
rica long before the separation became necessary, and with hostile 
feelings established almost as a part of the national character on 
both sides of the Atlantic ; and it seems equally probable that the 
independence of the Irish parliament would have been granted, 
and the elective franchise conferred upon the great body of the 
people, without waiting until the volunteer army created by the 
necessities of the American war forced the one measure, and the 
difficulties of the French revolution obtained the other. If there 
be any doubt whether these things would have been better without 
a governing body, such as the British parliament, it only can 
arise from the influence of the people affecting its deliberations, 
and being exerted — as upon full consideration it is always likely 
to be — in the right direction, although at first joining in the pre- 
vailing errors. In proportion as the parliament approached the 
constitution of the patrician body, that is, an aristocracy uncon- 



CH. XIII.] PARTIES POPULAR VIRTUES. 167 

nected with the oppressed orders (in this case the people of the 
colonies and of Ireland), in the same proportion was it likely to 
misgovern by giving scope to its jealousy of the other classes, and 
its desire of monopolising all power. 

The consequences were produced at Rome, which must always 
ensue from the same exclusive and engrossing spirit. The two 
orders grew up into a settled and a mutual hatred ; and when the 
people had gradually attained its full strength, it obtained not 
merely a share, but the preponderance in the government, so as 
to establish a powerful and most turbulent democracy. Under 
this the patricians suffered constant mortification; and although 
the natural influence of their wealth and attainments preserved 
them from being trampled upon and crushed, as they would in 
their former state have overpowered the commons, they had less 
than their just and natural influence in consequence of their former 
conduct, and the mutual hatred to which it had given rise. If they 
had yielded and conciliated betimes, the government would still 
have been republican, but with a control in the hands of the upper 
classes which must have both improved the form of the constitu- 
tion, and prevented the factious excesses that proved its ruin. The 
hatred of the two orders, which survived their distinct existence, 
ranged the different parts of the community against each other, 
when the terms patrician and plebeian had entirely lost their 
original sense; and gave rise to those factious contests which pro- 
duced the massacres, proscriptions, and civil wars that destroyed 
at once the character of the nation and its free constitution. 

The conduct of the plebeians throughout the struggle, that is, 
in the age when the character of the body was respectable, and its 
original structure remained, clearly proves how safely the patricians 
might have trusted to the influence of the Natural Aristocracy for 
securing to them an ample share of authority in the state. The 
moderation of the popular proceedings has often been commended, 
and it has been deduced from their sober habits and honest, con- 
scientious nature. That they possessed many of the qualities which 
distinguish an uncorrupted yeomanry, little advanced in knowledge 
any more than in refinement, may be admitted, and, among other 
qualities, the modesty and even humility incident to that cha- 
racter, and the aversion to violent courses, although, from living 
in crowds, habits of combined action were formed, which country 
people in general have nothing of. But the principal cause of the 



168 REFLECTIONS ON THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION, [cil. XIII. 

moderation in question was the natural influence of the patrician 
class, from wealth, rank, habits of command, eminent services, 
and superior information. Their oppressions drove the commons 
to resistance, but a little concession soon appeased them, and then 
the Natural Aristocracy resumed its influence. We have many 
remarkable instances of this. It may suffice to cite two. When 
the struggle for the consulship had so far proved successful that as 
a compromise consular tribunes were allowed to be chosen from 
both orders indifferently, the plebeians, without any exception, 
chose patricians; and it was nearly half a century (from a. u. c. 
309 to 353, when Licinius Calvus was chosen) before they ever 
availed themselves of the right to choose a plebeian. They first 
were allowed to choose a consul from their own order in 387 ; 
from that time both consuls might have been plebeian, though 
only one could be patrician. Yet nearly two centuries elapsed 
before the commons chose both from their own body (581). So 
the censorship was opened to them in 402 ; but it was not till 622 
that both censors were plebeian. The influence of the patricians 
was alike powerfully felt in the elections to the other offices which 
w T ere open to both orders. Tribunes and plebeian sediles they 
could not be by law ; but curule sediles and quaestors were chosen 
by the tribes alone ; and notwithstanding the power of mere num- 
bers in that assembly, the patricians were as frequently chosen to 
fill these places as to hold the higher offices, the appointment of 
which belonged to the centuries, with whom numbers had com- 
paratively little sway. Instead of wisely and virtuously trusting 
to their natural influence, the patricians maintained the contest 
with the people to the last, and when defeated, employed their 
wealth in corrupting the multitude, and their authority, their 
force, their example, in exasperating it, setting man against man, 
family against family, till the extinction of privileges so grievously 
abused became, if not a public benefit, certainly no injury to 
mankind. 

But if such were the changes which the plebeian body under- 
went, we may rest assured, although history only gives general 
indications of it, that the admission of the plebeians occasioned a 
separation of the patrician party into those who still maintained 
its exclusive privileges, and those who, more moderate in their 
opinions, had no repugnance to form with the more eminent 
plebeians a new aristocracy. The high or old patrician party 



CH. XIII.] ORDERS NEW-MOULDED. 169 

continued the struggle, as such bodies always do, long after it 
became hopeless. They had the augurs with them, for those 
places were still exclusively patrician, and instances are not want- 
ing of the most barefaced partiality shown by them in furthering 
the views of their party. Thus, when Cornelius had named as 
dictator Marcellus, who, though consul some years before, was of 
a plebeian family, the augurs pretended that the auspices were 
wrong taken, and declared the nomination void, they having been 
at Rome and the appointment made at Samnium. It was only 
in the process of time that this difference among the patricians 
gradually wore out, and the new aristocracy was established. 
While it lasted the senate was always more moderate and rational 
than the order at large. 

The transition of parties and orders from their original state, 
of the patricians on one side and in one class, the plebeians on 
the other side and in the other class, into that state in which the 
natural aristocracy was formed, and separated the wealthier and 
higher born from the inferior classes, was of course gradual, and 
only abolished the distinction of patrician and plebeian, substitut- 
ing a new arrangement for it, in a long series of years. The steps 
must have been the same as in all such cases ; and the principal 
one always is made by the inferior class itself. The habitual 
respect for the upper class, and the desire of belonging to it, or if 
not of belonging to it, of being connected with it, and of being 
distinguished from the rest of their comrades, is the powerful 
engine in bringing this change about. The class below the 
privileged class always the most highly prize those privileges, and 
most eagerly desire to separate themselves from those below them, 
and ally themselves with those above. Hence the more wealthy 
and powerful among the plebeians were at all times desirous of 
likening themselves to the patricians, and no sooner obtained 
access to patrician offices than they engrossed these almost as 
much, and excluded the bulk of their order almost as entirely from 
them as the patricians had before done with reference to the 
whole plebeians. The barriers being now removed which separated 
the two orders, first by intermarriages being allowed, and then by 
the magistracies being opened, the plebeian families whose ances- 
tors were distinguished by having held offices, or by any other 
eminence in the state, formed, together with the patricians, the 
aristocracy of the state ; and such of the patricians as fell into bad 



170 REFLECTIONS OH THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. [CH. XIII. 

circumstances, or became discountenanced for bad conduct, or 
for conduct of a mean description, such as engaging in occupations 
thai wore thought degrading, were numbered among the Lower 
orders, notwithstanding their birth. Supposing slavery in our 
colonies had been gradually abolished, and the distinctions of 
colour had not separated the descendants of the master from those 
of the slave, there would in the course of ages have been formed 
a class of society which would be the higher or aristocratic order, 
and the lower order would consist of the descendants of sli 
and freemen indifferently. Nor could any one fix the time when 
this distribution of rank by natural aristocracy had succeeded to 
the artificial distinction of slave and free. The oppression of the 
more numerous body at Rome by the new aristocracy, composed 
of the patricians and higher plebeians, was just as great, as it had 
ever been when exercised by the patricians alone. So would the 
West Indian aristocracy oppress the inferior classes in the case sup- 
posed. Indeed the maltreatment of their own order by the up- 
start plebeians, and by the descendants of West Indian slaves, 
would probably exceed that of the old aristocracy. 

It must however be observed that the structure of the govern- 
ment is not answerable for evils of this class. The oppression of 
the patricians while the plebeians were excluded from a share of 
the government, must be laid to the account of the aristocratic 
constitution, the artificial aristocracy. The continuance of the 
same oppressions exercised by a body somewhat diflierent, after 
the plebeians had obtained not only their share but a preponderat- 
ing influence in the government, was owing to the natural influ- 
ence of wealth and rank, the natural subserviency of the inferior 
classes, and, as parcel of that subserviency, their natural tendency 
to covet such distinctions, and to trample upon those beneath them. 
It is not that any wonder can ever be felt at the more eminent 
persons in the community rising to the top; or that any one can 
suppose it possible for the bulk of the people to confide their 
affairs to persons of their own class. Whatever be the structure 
of the government, the higher stations must generally, almost 
universally, be filled by the upper classes, let the power of ap- 
pointing to them be ever so absolutely vested in the people, and 
without any rule of exclusion. This is the law of our nature. But 
the Roman people disregarded their own interests in the choice 
they made of magistrates, and the support they gave to measures. 



CH. XIII.] CHECKS UPON THE PEOPLE. 171 

They might have selected from the upper classes, and excluded 
all those whose station disqualified them from holding power,, and 
yet have consulted the true interests of their own order, and of 
the state. Of this they were incapable by their ignorance. They 
had obtained power, but they used it to further the interests of 
their leaders. They had obtained political power before they 
were politically educated, so as to exercise it beneficially for them- 
selves and for the state ; and the acquisition only proved hurtful 
to both. The control over their superiors which they possessed, 
the power of providing for their own interests, was almost entirely 
thrown away ; it enabled them, but did not dispose them, to pur- 
sue the course most for their own benefit. They were the mere 
instruments in the hands of others, and the recovery of their rights 
availed them nothing. 

A survey of the constitution of Rome is calculated to suggest 
another general observation respecting the people, as important as 
that on which we have been dwelling, relative to the aristocratic 
body. The exertion of the popular influence, such as it was after 
the tribunes were established, and after the universal power of 
legislation and of government became vested in the tribes, would 
have been wholly incompatible with the existence of any other 
power or privileges in the state, and must have led immediately to 
the supremacy of the multitude, but for the operation of the nu- 
merous checks which the forms of proceeding and rights of various 
functionaries provided. Now these checks all resolved themselves 
into gaining time for more full deliberation ; but this was found 
sufficient in most cases to prevent serious mischief, partly because 
the opportunity was thus afforded for the upper classes exerting 
their natural influence, and partly because the people themselves 
had certain feelings and principles deeply implanted in them both 
of a patriotic and of a superstitious kind, which produced their 
effects when time was allowed for their operation. The force of 
these feelings and principles secured at all times the observance of 
forms and a deference to official privileges. The most furious 
assembly might be stopped short in its proceedings by the warn- 
ing of a magistrate, or of an augur; and the same habits of 
thinking in most cases enabled the superior orders, or the reflect- 
ing persons even of their own, to turn them away from extreme 
courses before any irreparable evil had ensued. Whoever doubts 
the safety of intrusting a large share of influence to a well-edu- 



172 REFLECTIONS ON THE ROMAN CONSTITUTION. [CH. XIII. 

cated people, may do worse than reflect on the safety with which 
for many ages the absolute power of the Roman tribes was en- 
joyed by them, with no better substitute for sound political infor- 
mal ion than their ancient hereditary prejudices in respect of civil 
and religious customs. 

But an examination of the Roman government is also fitted to 
place in a strong light the use of checks, and to show how erro- 
neous the arguments are of those who contend that every thing 
which a body has the power to do will be done. The various 
provisions of the constitution operated by delay, and the delay 
was in most cases sufficient, because all was not done that could 
legally be done, because reflection had its free scope, and because 
compromise and mutual concession was preferred to extreme mea- 
sures. Whoever has considered the effects produced by notice 
both in our courts of law and our legislative assemblies, will at 
once perceive how much they resemble the effects of the delays at 
Rome. In courts, the consequence of notice is, that parties can- 
not be taken by surprise, and that an application to undo what 
had unfairly been done may be unnecessary. But in Parliament 
the advantage is greater ; for the delay interposed both prevents 
many things from being attempted by individuals or by parties, 
which might on the spur of an occasion have been successfully 
tried, and induces the body itself to adopt a resolution very 
different from that which might at first have been taken. 

But. there arose out of the conflict of authorities at Rome and 
the influence possessed by bodies as well as by individual magis- 
trates, one most pernicious mischief, affecting at all times the 
security of the state, and which, with the always sanguinary and 
latterly corrupt character of the people, finally effected its ruin. 
There was no effectual control over dangerous men, men of turbu- 
lent ambition and profligate character, and who might be disposed 
to seek their own aggrandisement in the confusion of public affairs. 
In earlier times such risks were avoided, sometimes by acts of 
sudden and irregular energy on the part of the magistrates, and 
sometimes by the appointment of dictators. When the people 
would no longer submit to the dictatorial authority, the senate by 
its extraordinary resolution ne quid detriment i, endeavoured to 
supply its place, and to make it safe and regular for magistrates 
to act as they had formerly done illegally and at their own peril. 
But still the influence of the different bodies, and of the different 



CH. XIII.] CATILINE CICERO. 173 

orders in the state to which persons belonged, was sufficient to 
prevent the law from taking its regular course, even when the 
most atrocious conspiracies had been detected. The suddenly 
putting to death Catiline's associates, after they had been clearly 
detected and had indeed confessed their treason, was an act of 
vigour beyond the law : it was certainly done by the consul and 
the senate in breach of the forms of the constitution ; and indeed 
Cicero was afterwards impeached for it. At the moment, it was 
rendered practicable by the state of public feeling on the recent 
discovery of the plot. But so little could Cicero reckon upon 
this frame of mind lasting, that he had the prisoners strangled 
on the same night on which he had, with considerable difficulty, 
obtained the vote for their punishment. And as for the principal 
criminal himself, Catiline, not only had no attempt been made to 
seize his person and proceed against him, but the whole efforts of 
the consul were directed to make him quit the city, of which the 
gates were thrown open to favour his retreat, although it was 
ascertained that he was going to head a rebel army for the sup- 
port of his accomplices at Rome, and although he stood so clearly 
convicted by his own furious declarations, that none of the senators 
would degrade themselves by sitting near him in the same part 
of the house. There was no want of vigour in the magistrate, 
any more than of proof against the criminal ; but there were large 
bodies of powerful men with whom the one was connected, and of 
whom the other was in prudence obliged to stand in fear.* — The 
blessing of an escape from the perils of such a terrible state of 
things is well worth a large sacrifice of power to all the orders of 
a community. 

* Middleton's attempt to turn the proceeding into a panegyric on Cicero's skill is as 
great a failure as his endeavour to place him on a level with Demosthenes in eloquence, 
and almost with Lucretius in poetry. It is plain that he had a sufficient case against 
the criminal, if he had only had a tribunal of magistrates before which to use it. But 
the same state of parties and of manners which made it safe for Clodius to insult him by 
his mob in the streets, and impeach him before the assembly of the tribes, for saving the 
country, and only five years after this service — which made it also safe for men like 
Crassus and Julius Caesar to intrigue almost openly with desperate conspirators, and 
for patricians of the highest rank to set on men almost as noble as themselves to assassi- 
nate the first magistrate of the country — rendered it not merely dangerous but wholly 
impossible to put the law in force against those conspirators and assassins, unless at 
particular moments, and in peculiar combinations of circumstances, which deprived 
the wrong-doers of all support from any considerable body, and thus armed the law 
with a transitory and unusual vigour. 



1 74 |"ch. xiv. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — CRETE — SPARTA. 



Greek Authorities — False Chronology — Ages of the Historians — Early History — Con- 
stitution of Crete — Perioeci ; Clerotes — Pure Aristocracy established — Resistance — 
Federal Government established. 

Constitution of Sparta derived from Crete — Opinions of Polybius and others — Perioeci 
— Helots — Lycurgus — General Remarks — Authors — Classes of the People — Proofs 
of this Theory — Hypomeiones; Homoioi; Mothaces — Tribes; Phylae ; Ob» — 
Castes — Mora? — Errors of Authors — Kings or Archageta? — Rules of Succession — Se- 
nate — Ecclesia — Mode of Voting — Harmosyna? ; Homophylaces ; Harmosta? ; Hip- 
pagretae. 

The early history of Greece is, like that of Rome, and indeed of 
every other nation, lost in obscurity. The first historians whose 
writings remain, lived even longer after the events which they 
describe than those of Rome ; and there seems no reason to be- 
lieve that they had any other authority for the stories which they 
relate than the old traditions of the country. The chronology of 
Greece is, accordingly, much more uncertain than that of Rome ; 
and the impossibility of the dates commonly given by ancient 
writers is more apparent. Thus they make the foundation of 
Athens 1556 years before the vulgar era, and the reign of The- 
seus 1334. But Sir Isaac Newton has adduced reasons for be- 
lieving that Athens could only have been founded 1 080 years, and 
Theseus have reigned 968 before Christ. Of these reasons it may 
suffice to mention one. By the common account, nine successive 
kings must have reigned at Athens thirty- five years each upon an 
average, and the thirteen archons who followed them twenty-seven 
years each ;* nay, in Sparta, nine kings after Aristodemus are 
reported to have reigned forty-one years on an average — a thing 
contrary to all experience, and which in that state of society may 
confidently be pronounced impossible to have happened. But 
supposing the Newtonian account to be taken, which brings those 
early events much nearer the time of the historians, we shall still 
have Thucydides living above five centuries after Theseus, and six 

* C. Sigon. De Rep. Ath., i. — C. Sig. De Ath. Temporibus — J. Meursius (De Fortund 
Ath. and Atticce Lectiones) points out many errors and discrepancies of ancient authors. 



CH. XIV.] EARLY GRECIAN HISTORY. 175 

and a half after the foundation of the city, Polybius nearly nine cen- 
turies, Dionysius above ten, Plutarch between eleven and twelve, 
after the foundation ; and after Theseus all later than Thucydides 
in the same proportions. So with respect to Sparta, Herodotus 
wrote above two centuries and a half, Xenophon nearly three, and 
Plutarch nearly eight, after the most recent time assigned as the 
age of Lycurgus. These authors and others, however, do not 
differ so much with each other upon the more important matters 
as the Roman historians : hence there is considerably more re- 
liance to be placed upon the traditions which all agree in record- 
ing ; and we may the more safely conclude that they had some 
foundation in fact. The most important portions, too, of the 
subject are those so near the times of the historians, that we have 
every reason to trust their accounts where they agree. Xenophon 
describes the legislation of Solon at the distance of only a century 
and a half; and though much further removed from Lycurgus, 
yet the Spartan institutions had lasted to his own times. It must 
however be observed, that there were many things in the origin 
of that Spartan system and the early history of the state gene- 
rally, almost as little known in those days as in our own. This 
obscurity arose from the Spartans having no writers of any kind, 
and from their intercourse with their neighbours having for some 
ages been extremely limited. 

The structure of the government in the Greek states, though 
necessary to be examined, does not afford matter of such import- 
ant consideration, nor is it, with the exception of Sparta, of so sin- 
gular and anomalous a kind as the Roman constitution. About the 
middle of the tenth century before Christ the troubles in Palestine 
appear to have occasioned an emigration of Phoenicians, who were 
in a much more civilized state than the Pelasgians, the original in- 
habitants of Greece. Sir Isaac Newton considers this to have hap- 
pened in king David's time, and his opinion has met with general 
approval. These emigrants brought with them to Greece and the 
islands the knowledge of many arts formerly unknown in those 
barbarous districts ; and they founded Thebes in Bceotia, beside 
establishing the government of Minos in Crete, where certainly the 
first general system of polity known in Greece was instituted. Its 
object was purely military, all its arrangements being framed with 
a view to train up warriors from the earliest age, and to place each 
member of the community under the strict discipline of the law, in 



170 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — CRETE SPARTA. [CH. XIV. 

the whole conduct of his life. The supreme power was lodged in 
a king, or military chief, and ten magistrates, called cosmi, chosen 
yearly, it does not appear how, from certain families only, and a 
senate appointed for life from those who had been cosmi. All 
laws and treaties were in the name of the cosmi and city or state; 
and one of the cosmi, thence called eponymus, gave his name to 
the year. There were assemblies of the people, but without any 
other power than simply to accept or reject the propositions of 
the senate and cosmi. The cosmi were the executive government, 
both civil and military, when there no longer was a king ap- 
pointed ; and the king appears to have been hereditary as regarded 
the family, but with an election as regarded the person. The 
election was in all probability by the senate ; * or if the people 
were called upon to interfere, it was only as in the case of new 
laws, to sanction what the senate proposed ; but the choice of the 
senators is said to have rested with the cosmi. Aristotle deci- 
dedly blames the aristocratic principle of confining the choice of 
officers to certain families. Tn truth, the government appears to 
have been entirely aristocratical. But as it was also military, 
and as the whole pursuits of the people were subordinate to their 
warlike occupations, a class of persons in a meaner and in a ser- 
vile condition, called perioeci (Ve^o/Hot), from inhabiting the 
neighbourhood of towns, cultivated the soil. They were considered 
so far the property of the state that they could not be separated 
from the soil, and they paid a portion of the produce. These 
perioeci were evidently the descendants of the original inhabitants, 
whom the Phoenician settlers had subdued. The slaves, who 
were either prisoners of war or their descendants, formed a sepa- 
rate class, and were always treated in Crete with much greater 
humanity than in most of the Greek states. They were chiefly 
•distinguished from the free inhabitants by being incapable, like 
foreigners, of political privileges, and by being restrained from 
gymnastic exercises and the use of arms, f It was a part of the 
civic economy that all the citizens lived in public ; the members 
of each of the tribes into which the people were arranged dining 
always at the same table. The education and training of all 

* U. Ennius, Vet. Grcec. (De Repub. Cret.) — J. Laurentius, De Rebuspublicis, cap. i. 

f It is extremely incorrect to confound, as some authors have done, the perioeci, or 
tributaries, and slaves, clerotes, so called from falling to the lot of the conquerors. They 
are sometimes called chrysoiietes, from being purchased. 



CH. XIV.] CONSTITUTION OF CRETE. 177 

children devolved upon public officers appointed by the state, so 
that the whole community was formed into one great family. 

When the government became purely aristocratic, by the whole 
power being vested in the cosmi, there were frequent insurrections, 
occasioned by their tyranny ; and we are told that the laws did 
not punish sedition, because some such check was necessary to 
counteract the extensive powers of the magistrates. This most 
clumsy contrivance is censured justly by Aristotle: but it seems 
difficult to conceive how any government could have existed iri 
such circumstances; and the probability is, that the notion of re- 
sistance, when unsuccessful, going unpunished, may have arisen 
from the frequency of its occurrence^ and the consequent mutual 
forbearance of the different parties which divided the community. 
The principle of a communion of goods appears to have so far 
been established, that the public revenue derived from the heavy 
tribute or rent paid by the periceci was employed to support the 
expense of feeding the whole citizens and their slaves at the public 
tables ; but this arrangement was one of the first to fall into disuse. 
It is wholly uncertain at what time there ceased to be kings 
in Crete ; the last is said to have been Idomeneus, who was 
at the siege of Troy. But this is plainly a fabulous portion of 
history. At whatever time the royal office ceased, the unity of 
the government appears soon after to have terminated ; and the 
island was divided into a number of petty communities, or cities, 
each under the government of cosmi and a senate. The most 
powerful of these states were the Gnossians, Gortynians, and Cy- 
donians. The two first were in a constant state of rivalry and 
hostility, and to this the independence of the lesser communities 
was mainly owing. These formed alliances among themselves, 
offensive and defensive, and communicated to each other the rights 
of citizenship, tsopoliteia, which implied the full power of possessing 
land in each other's territory, of marrying, and of having their 
laws executed upon fugitives ;* in short, all but political privileges. 
A central council was ultimately established, which determined 
the quotas to be furnished by each state, and apportioned the 
shares of the booty taken in war according to the relative num- 
bers of the citizens, reserving to the government of each a tenth of 

* Where a citizen of one state had injured the citizen of another, he was tried by 
judges equally taken from both communities — de metlietate, as the English law- 
terms it. 

PART II. N 



178 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE SPARTA. [CH. XIV. 

its portion. The uniformity of the accounts respecting the Cretan 
government justify us in concluding that it was generally of the 
nature described, and that it had assumed a regular form much 
earlier than any other system of polity in any part of Europe. 

It cannot reasonably be doubted that from Crete the govern- 
ment of Sparta was derived.* In the earliest times the Laconians, 
an invading body of Dorians from Thessaly, lived in tribes or 
towns, under chiefs or kings, whose authority was precarious and 
ill-established, the most powerful portion of each community 
being the landowners. A kind of union of the whole had, how- 
ever, been formed. In consequence of the kingdom being left by 
one of these chiefs (Aristodemus) to his two sons, Eurysthenes 
and Procles, there continued always to be two kings, one of the 
family of each. j- They are said to have divided the country into 
six districts, and placed a chief over each as their deputy,^ residing 
themselves at Sparta, the chief town. The original inhabitants, 
after being at first only made tributary, were reduced to slavery 
in consequence of a revolt, and the free inhabitants of the country 
(perioeci), though holding inferior privileges to those of the chief 
towns, were allowed to fill public offices. The slaves were called 
Helots, from Helos, one of the towns in which they lived, and 
which had led the insurrection. 

Nothing could be more feeble and disjointed than such a 
government; and particularly an executive power thus consti- 

* Polybius (lib. vi. c. 45) denies this ; but the reasons which he assigns appear in- 
sufficient to support his proposition. He relies only on the great inferiority, as he con- 
siders it, of the Cretan to the Spartan institutions in many particulars ; but this is 
inconclusive The similarity in such peculiar institutions as the cosmi and public 
tables seems to justify the opinion of Plato, Xenophon, and others who trace the 
Spartan to the Cretan government. This question is fully and judiciously discussed in 
St. Croix's learned treatise, Des anciens Gouvernemens, Federatifs, et de la Legislation 
de Crete, p. 413 et seq. It is plain that Polybius had a violent prejudice against the 
Cretans, whom he even accuses of cowardice and inaptitude for war, notwithstanding 
their vile practice of selling or hiring their services to foreign nations, and being some- 
times found, as Livy has recorded, fighting on both sides. An equal instance of na- 
tional prejudice on the same subject, though it take an apologetic and not a vituperative 
turn, is to be found in Haller's explanation of the same baseness in the Swiss. He has 
the courage to assert that it comes from the desire of maintaining martial habits, and 
learning the improvements in the art of war ! 

f U. Emmius, Vet. Grcec. {Rep. Lac.) Aristodemus is represented as one of the 
Heraclida? who overran the greater part of Greece, and reduced the natives in some 
places to absolute subjection, in others to a divided property. Laconia is said to have 
been his share. 

+ Strabo, viii. 



CH. XIV.] LYCURGUS. 179 

tuted ; and the dissensions of the kings, with the factious disposi- 
tions of the landowners, their appeals to the multitude, who were 
left without any regular share in the government, the number of 
slaves, who carried on all the agriculture of the country, and 
being subjected to cruel treatment were ever ready to revolt when 
a foreign war made such a movement the more dangerous, all 
exposed the state to such risks of utter destruction, that the adop- 
tion of some new system seemed necessary to preserve its existence. 
Fortunately Lycurgus, who succeeded on his brother's death to 
the joint crown, but who, with great magnanimity, refused to take 
it upon learning that the widow was with child, retired into Crete 
during some civil commotion, and being invited by both the 
sovereigns and the people to return, brought back with him a full 
knowledge of the Cretan system, upon the principles of which he 
persuaded his countrymen to new-model their own. The common 
chronology places this change in the 884th year before Christ ; but 
Sir Isaac Newton, upon better grounds, dates it in the year 708.* 
As constantly happens, all the institutions of the country have 
been ascribed to Lycurgus ; whereas there can be no doubt that 
he preserved many of former times, and that some were added by 
succeeding statesmen. It is however certain that the extremely 
artificial and unnatural system, of which he was the principal 
founder, took such hold as to last an extraordinary length of 
time, and produced effects upon the character and habits of the 
people which distinguished them from all other nations. The 
desperate state of anarchy into which the community had fallen, 
and the dangers to which all were exposed from their neighbours, 
as well as their own countrymen, perhaps still more from the 
slaves, or conquered race, appear to have combined with the 
superstitious reverence for the oracles consulted by Lycurgus, to 
make the people adopt his plan ; and if once fully adopted, the 
more it was in opposition to the natural order of things, it per- 
haps had the better chance of taking deep root, and becoming 
permanently established. There are some parts of the system 
almost incomprehensible ; there are others which must be regarded 

* J. Meursius {Areopagus, cap. 3) makes Lycurgus contemporary with the begin- 
ning of the Olympiads, which, according to Newton, is the year 776 b.c. Aristotle, 
Pausanias, and Plutarch give the same date. Xenophon places his age much earlier; 
but the preponderance of authority seems in favour of the reign of Charilaus, who was 
the sixth from Procles, and flourished about 700 b.c. 

N 2 



180 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE— SPARTA. [CH. XIV. 

as doubtful, because of the conflicting accounts that describe 
them ; there are not. a few which remain imperfectly stated; and 
there are several which cannot be believed to have existed, be- 
cause they are directly repugnant to others vouched by the same 
authorities. ]>ut it. will be expedient in the first place to give the 
account in which the greater number of ancient writers agree, 
which may therefore be supposed to represent something re- 
sembling the Spartan constitution, and the main portions of which 
may probably be trusted. The learned and judicious treatise of 
Nicolas Cragius De RejmbUca Lacedcemoniorvm, the treatise De 
Rep, Lac. in the third volume of U. Emmius's Vetus Grcecia, 
and the second book (chaps. 4 to 8) of J. Meursius's Miscel- 
lanea Laconica, bring together the whole of the learning upon 
this subject. But beside the occasional notices in Aristotle's 
Politics and Plato's Laws, the treatise of Xenophon upon the 
polity of Lacedeemon contains most valuable information. It is 
only to be lamented that the description is confined rather to the 
institutions which regulated the economy of the state, and that 
much of the government is left untouched. The probity, good 
sense, and great practical experience of the writer make his au- 
thority as high as possible on all subjects. 

The Lacedaemonians, or Laconians, may be considered as of 
three classes: the Spartans, inhabitants of the capital; the country 
people (perioeci), inhabitants of the neighbourhood ; and the inha- 
bitants of the other districts or towns. The whole of these towns 
were under subjection to Sparta, but each had its municipal go- 
vernment, and there w r as only an assembly of the whole inhabit- 
ants upon extraordinary occasions, chiefly upon questions of peace 
and war. The assemblies (ecclesice) to be mentioned presently, 
.called the lesser, were therefore confined to the affairs of Sparta 
and its territory, and only regarded the government of the other 
towns in so far as these were subject to Sparta. In those assem- 
blies only the Spartans could take a part; the periceci were ex- 
cluded from them, and were ineligible to office. 

A great obscurity hangs over the periceci. Some represent 
them as all the free inhabitants of the country, that is, all but the 
Helots; others as the portion of those country people who lived 
near the town. Some make no distinction between them and the 
Lacedaemonians, reckoning as Lacedaemonians the neighbours of 
the Spartans, and considering all the other people as Laconians ; 



CII. XIV.] CLASSES OF THE PEOPLE. 181 

according to which opinion Spartans and Lacedaemonians were those 
Laconians who lived in and near the capital. It has been affirmed 
(Cramer's Ancient Greece, iii., 156) that the periceci had the rights 
of citizens, being eligible to all offices ; and it has been represented 
as quite undeniable that they were of Laconian origin (U. Em- 
mius, De Republicd Laced cemoniorum) , although the attempt to 
give them the rights of citizens was resisted in the proceedings of 
Agis, expressly on the ground that to admit foreigners was contrary 
to the laws of Lycurgus (Pint., Agis) Though there are difficul- 
ties attending almost any supposition, the most probable theory 
seems to be this. The Dorians, having overrun Laconia, at first 
lived with the original inhabitants, leaving them a great part of 
their possessions, but subjecting them to burdensome exactions. 
A revolt, headed by the town of Helos, was suppressed, and all 
who had been engaged in it were reduced to the condition of serfs, 
and their lands distributed, so, however, as to leave them in pos- 
session upon payment of a rent. Those who had not joined in 
the revolt retained their lands and were the inhabitants of the 
country, while the Dorians lived in the lesser towns, and were 
distinguished from the Spartans, who inhabited the chief town, 
and kept free from all admixture with the natives. With these 
natives, the Lacedaemonians, or Dorians, inhabiting the other 
towns, probably mixed more freely in marriage, and also adopted 
them as citizens (Erasm. Vindurgius Hellenicus, Art. Laceda- 
monii). But the periceci were in all probability the descendants 
of the original inhabitants living in the country. The property of 
the land belonged to the town people and the country people 
alike; and as the Dorians despised all agricultural industry, 
which the Spartans still more scorned after their institutions had 
assumed a purely military character, the whole interest which they 
held in the land was as manorial owners, the Helots being the 
possessors and cultivators. 

It seems impossible upon any other supposition to account for 
the three following circumstances which seem vouched upon un- 
questionable authority. 

1. The Cretan periceci were serfs, and are represented as being 
in Crete what the Helots were in Laconia. Now it is quite un- 
deniable that the periceci in Laconia were free. But if they were 
originally of the same class with the Helots, and the Helots be- 
came serfs after their insurrection, we can easily perceive the rea- 



182 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — SPARTA. [CH. XIV. 

son why the Cretan pcrioeci are compared to the Helots — the 
Helots being the enslaved portion of the Laconian pcrioeci. 

2. When Cinadon, according to Xenophon, enumerated the 
classes of persons whom he could rely on to join his insurrection, 
because they all had a common cause in the oppression exercised 
by the Spartans, he mentions the periceci, with the Helots, the 
newly-enfranchised slaves, and the inferior class of Spartans (hypo- 
meiones), none of whom had any civic rights. He says nothing 
of the Lacedaemonians, or inhabitants of the other towns. These 
he could not reckon upon ; and when he says that the owner only, 
or master (SeaTroryj*) of any farm will be against him, he is ex- 
pressly speaking of farms belonging to Spartans alone (Hist. Gr. 
iii., p. 385, ed. Lenuclavii). 

3. When Agis brought forward his plan, he proposed to make 
a new division of the lands, giving 4500 lots to the Spartans ; and 
as only seven hundred families of these remained, of w T hom all 
but one hundred had lost their property, he was to fill up their 
number to the original amount* from persons chosen among the 
periceci for their good qualities. The other 1500 lots were to be 
distributed among the people of the districts, that is, the Lacedae- 
monians, to whom the periceci always were regarded as subordi- 
nate. Accordingly, they were not to receive their lots as a body, 
but persons were to be selected from among them. That they, 
and not the Lacedaemonians, were to be thus enrolled among 
the homoioi, the peers, or Spartans, is easily explained ; there 
was no jealousy of them because they had not magistrates and 
troops of their own, like the lesser Laconian towns. They lived 
entirely under the control of the Spartans. The mothaces were a 
number of young persons who had been in a servile condition, not 
Helots, of whom the law discouraged and even prohibited the en- 
franchisement, but liberated domestic slaves, or their children, 
and who were educated along with the sons of the upper classes, 
in order to accompany them in war after finishing their education. 
And nothing can more clearly show the error of those who consider 
the only peculiarity of the homoioi to have been their Spartan 
training; for here the mothaces were free and w r ere trained, but ex- 
pressly are stated " not to have had any civil rights," Lysander, 

* It is to be observed that this plan of Agis proceeds upon the calculation of those 
who gave, not 9,000, but 4,500, as the original number in Lvcurgus's distribution. It 
is one of the three accounts which Plutarch mentions as current. 



CH. XIV.] TRIBES ; OTHER SUBDIVISIONS. 183 

Syliphus, and Theocrates having, for their great services, been 
made citizens, as exceptions to the rule. 

The people were divided into six tribes* (phylce), and each tribe 
into five subdivisions called oboe. The army consisted of one 
division or regiment for each tribe. There were also castes, as 
in India and Egypt, so that the same occupation descended in all 
the members of a family. In order to constitute a citizen with 
full privileges^ both father and mother must have been Spartan, 
and free for three generations. These were termed komoioi 
(equals or peers) freedmen or foreigners, and their issue were, 
together with the poorer classes who could not pay their contri- 
butions! to the public table, called hypomeiones, and had no poli- 
tical privileges any more than the periceci. Thus there appears 
to have been at Sparta, as at Rome, a patrician class, and com- 
posed in a similar manner, though much more numerous. It 
afterwards was gradually diminished : at the time of Cinadon's 
insurrection in the reign of Agesilaus, three centuries after Lycur- 
gus, there were not above seven hundred Spartan families in the 
whole community, and none of the class were then found serving 
in a lower rank than centurions. 

The two kings (called archagetce) were taken one from each of 
the royal families. Originally they were probably elected from 
those families ; but though the form of election continued, and the 
assembly decided in cases of disputed succession, yet it always 
chose the eldest son of the deceased or deposed king, or his next 
male heir, if he left no son; and the grandson by a deceased son 

* Xenophon distinctly states that there were six divisions. {Rep. Lac. xi.) — Aris- 
totle, Diod. Sic, and others, make them five. — J. Meurs. {Misc. Lacon., i. 16) plau- 
sibly suggests that Xenophon may have included the Scyra, troops who, though provin- 
cial, were reckoned as Lacedaemonians. ButN. Cragius enumerates six tribes by their 
names, without including the Scyra. {Rep. Lac, i., 6.) — The phyla appears to have 
been the military division ; the mora, a portion of it between twenty and sixty years 
old, being the military age. 

f Nothing can be more erroneous than the inference which some have drawn from a 
passage in Xenophon {Rep. Lac. c. 10) that all were opotot, or fully-privileged citizens, 
who observed the laws and discipline of Lycurgus. It is true that he there says all such 
should have the civic rights, notwithstanding bodily inferiority or poverty of circum- 
stances — but this must have meant all of the class to which the civic rights belonged ; 
for in his Hist. Graec. iii., he describes Cinadon as both strong and brave, and yet not 
of the opotoi — see N. Crag. Rep. Lac, xi. 10 ; U. Emm., Gr. Vet. The account which 
Xenophon gives of the grounds on which Cinadon had reckoned for success shows how 
few homoioi there were — " Count the people in the market-place, kings, ephori, sena- 
tors, and about forty more; 1 ' and in Ihe country, " the master only of each farm.'" 



184 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — SPARTA. [cH. XIV. 

excluded his uncle-. The deposition or forfeiture of the father for 
crimes involved not his issue; and infancy formed no bar to the 
succession, a guardian or regent being appointed to administer 
during the minority and superintend the child's education. It was 
a ground for passing over the next heir that he had any lameness 
or other great bodily defect. Nor could one of the other family 
ever succeed on a vacancy, however near in blood. The purity of 
the constitution was entirely gone when Agesilaus, himself lame, 
was chosen to the exclusion of his nephew on the ground of his 
mother's alleged adultery ; and still more when he made one of 
his family his colleague. It is one of the many remarkable and 
inconsistent things in this singular constitution, that though there 
was no jealousy of a spurious issue being introduced into any other 
family, the chastity of the queen was watched over with the most, 
rigorous care by magistrates, on whom that duty especially de- 
volved. 

The senate consisted of twenty-eight persons chosen by the 
assembly, and holding their places for life. They were required 
to be sixty years old, of unblemished reputation, and were obliged 
to solicit the office as candidates. The government was at first 
almost entirely in the senate, and its authority was at all times 
considerable. The kings had the command of the forees, and one 
led each army, if there were two in the field; if not, and they 
could not agree, the senate probably bestowed the command. 
While at the head of the troops the king had unlimited power, 
both over the soldiers and the people in whose territory the service 
was carried on. At home he had precedence in public places, 
was honoured by all except one class of magistrates (the ephori) 
rising when he entered, had a double portion of food at the 
dinners, which, in common with the rest of the people, he was 
obliged to attend ; had the third part of the booty taken in war ; 
had a double vote in the senate. The kings called this body 
together, and they presided over it in their turn : they were also 
at the head of the religion of the state, appointing each two officers 
called pythii, who communicated with the oracle at Delphos, and 
reported the answers, which the kings used, we may believe, to 
support their influence. The kings had also jurisdiction in cer- 
tain causes, as the right to marry an heiress whose father had died 
without betrotlnng her, the adoption of children by childless 
persons, and die care of the highways. Although it is possible 



CH. XIV.] SENATE; ASSEMBLIES. 185 

that, from their influence, and especially their military rank in 
so warlike a state, the kings were not such mere ciphers as they 
have been represented, yet it is plain that, from their limited 
prerogative, and from their unavoidable disagreements, they could 
have no great share of power, and were little adapted to make 
any encroachments upon other branches of the government. 

The senate, beside the criminal jurisdiction in all capital cases,* 
had the power, as well as the kings, of convoking the assemblies of 
the people (ecclesice), and had the sole power of proposing to those 
assemblies laws or measures of any kind. The assemblies were 
attended by all the free and freeborn native citizens (homoioi) of 
thirty years old, being held monthly, and also on extraordinary 
occasions. This assembly had no right to originate any matter, 
or to debate it ; for no one could speak but the magistrates, or 
those whom they and the senate allowed, and the assembly could 
only accept or reject the propositions which it made. 

The chief power of the assembly was the choice of magistrates ; 
and it was exercised by acclamation and not by ballot, and only 
rarely by division. A very artificial method of determining the 
majority without dividing was resorted to. Certain persons were 
appointed, it does not distinctly appear by whom, and enclosed 
in a building close by the place of meeting, but so that they could 
neither be seen nor see what passed. The candidates presented 
themselves in the order determined by lot, and the people ex- 
pressed their opinion by shouts. The persons enclosed made a 
minute of what they considered as the shout of the greatest num- 
ber, distinguishing by figures only, that is, calling it the first, se- 
cond, and third shout, and reporting it in this way before they 
could tell to which candidate the figure and the shout referred. 
The same course, mutatis mutandis, was taken when any measure 
was proposed ; and though it is said that the numbers were some- 
times so balanced that the scrutineers could not tell which had 
the majority, and that then they required the meeting to divide, 
it should seem that in the assemblies this hardly ever happened, 
though in the meetings of the senate it was not uncommon. 
Thus it seems clear that with a little management the regulating 

* No capital trial could be finished without a delay of some days, for fear of fatal 
mistakes (jiulla anquam de morte hominis cunctatio longa) ; but an acquittal on the 
converse of this principle did not absolve — the party might be tried at any time on fresh 
evidence appearing against him. 



186 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — SPARTA. [CH. XIV. 

body, the senate, could, by collusion with the scrutineers, as by 
audible signals, even if no tricks were played with the lot, obtain 
a favourable report touching the result of the appeal to the people, 
where there was any considerable division of opinion. 

There were beside the kings and polemarchs, or commanders 
of the forces, other magistrates, of whose functions a very imper- 
fect account has reached us. The harmosyna appear to have 
had censorial powers, particularly as regarded female conduct, 
but also to have exercised a general corrective authority. The 
homophylaces, or guardians of the laws, beside prosecuting for 
offences, may have been the depositaries and interpreters of those 
laws, as they were never reduced to writing. The harmostce, of 
whom more is known, because they served abroad, were governors 
of conquered provinces or towns; the Lacedaemonian policy 
being, wherever they obtained a footing, to establish a senate, 
generally often persons, and to appoint a governor over the whole. 
But harmostse were also appointed at home for purposes of police; 
and the same name is given to a much higher magistrate, if we 
may believe Dionysius, who describes him as a dictator occa- 
sionally chosen. It is, however, probable that this only refers to 
such cases as that of Agis and Cleomenes, chiefs in revolutionary 
movements. These, and all other civil magistrates, were chosen 
at the annual popular assembly, and held their office for one 
year. The hippagretce were military officers like the polemarchs, 
being three persons originally appointed by the kings, afterwards 
by the ephori, and who chose each a hundred of the most dis- 
tinguished young men as a kind of body guard, or equestrian 
order, which, upon attaining a certain age, they quitted, but re- 
tained a rank in consequence of having been formerly so selected ; 
and this was understood to give them a claim as candidates for 
any vacancy in the senate, in like manner as the equites had a 
similar preference at Rome. 



ch. xv.] 187 



CHAPTER XV. 

GOVERNMENTS OE GREECE SPARTA. 

(Continued?) 



Object of the Spartan system — Its operation traced — Stages of Human Life as subject 
to it — Marriage ; procreation ; infancy ; boyhood ; paedonomus ; full age — Equality 
of Fortune attempted — Slaves; their Classes; Treatment — Ephori; their Power — 
Resemblance to Tribunes — Opinions of Authors reconciled — Ephoral Usurpation — 
Artificial Aristocracy — Natural Aristocracy — Controversy on Classification ; Opi- 
nions of Authors — Contradictory Usages — Unintelligible Statements — Paradoxes — 
Duration of Lycurgus's Polity — Party Process and Changes — Agis; Lysander; 
Cleomenes — Spartans overpowered, join the Achaean League — Distinction of Orders. 

The whole object of the Spartan constitution and economy was to 
train up soldiers ; to this every other consideration was sacrificed ; 
and the extreme of consistency to which the principle was carried 
has certainly no parallel in the history of mankind. 

The lawgiver was not satisfied with beginning at the cradle 
and taking possession of the new-born infant, that he might per- 
vert its nature to his purpose ; he began with taking precautions 
to ensure a strong and healthy breed of animals, and in sufficient 
numbers. Young men were required to marry at an early age, 
but not until the vigour of their body had become complete. 
The maidens were not inured to female occupations or trained to 
the softness and delicacy that most adorns their sex, but habituated 
to masculine sports, and to exposure of their persons for the sake 
of acquiring a hardy and muscular frame. With a view to 
eradicate the sense of shame which might prevent them from 
regarding themselves as the lawgiver did — in the light of mere 
brood cattle — they were accustomed to associate as much with 
youths as with those of their own sex. Although marriage was 
held in reverence, and ordinary bastardy deprived of all political 
privileges, adultery was allowed, and even encouraged, wherever 
there was either a want of issue, or a prospect of improving the 
breed by a change of connexion. The law even interfered with 
the seasons of conjugal intercourse, in order to promote the more 
vigorous generation of a robust offspring. 



188 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE SPARTA. [CH. XV. 

The young animal being born, was instantly delivered over, not 
1o the care of the parent., or even of a nurse, but to government 
inspectors, who put it to death if it either had any blemish or 
appeared of a sickly constitution. The Romans allowed thesamc 
option to the parent that the Spartans gave the magistrate ; and 
the term education derives its origin from the father electing to 
take up his progeny, instead of leaving it, as he had the power of 
doing, exposed to perish. 

At an early age the boys came under the government of a 
magistrate, called the pcedonomus, or boy ruler, who took care 
that they were trained to habits of exercise, discipline, and 
temperance, not so much for the sake of their morals as of their 
health, and to give them the strength, the agility, and the powers 
of endurance which were the great essentials of Spartan excel- 
lence. But cunning as well as patience and courage was to be 
acquired ; and thieving and stratagem was taught, the remorse 
being connected only with failure, and the shame only attached 
to detection. Sentimental attachments were, also, encouraged 
between persons of the same sex, with a preposterous notion of 
inspiring courage and confidence, and a reliance, still more absurd, 
upon the power of the law to prevent the abuses which it encou- 
raged.* In order that every chance should be taken to secure 
the great object, the production of an animal of perfect strength 
and suppleness, and in good condition, even the period of military 
service was postponed, and a year or two of the youth's life was 
spent in the chase. 

But the superintending care of the state did not cease when the 
young soldier had been given to his country ; the life of each man 
in war was regulated by his commander, and by the magistrates 
who accompanied the forces, and in peace by a discipline almost 
as rigorously enforced as if the town had been a camp. All the 
citizens were obliged to feed at a public repast, of a broth pro- 
verbially alike difficult to eat and to digest, and of boiled pork, 
which the older and truer Spartan despised and left to younger 
and nicer palates. On these dainties the magistrates, the kings 
not excepted, were bound to feed with the rest of the community ; 

* In Crete the atrocious plan was pursued of encouraging the worst abuse of those 
passions ; and Xenophon, in affirming that no such abomination existed at Sparta, 
confesses that it is not easy to make people believe this, in Greece, because of the guilty 
practice prevailing elsewhere. — Hep. Lac, cap. ii. 



CH. XV.] LAWS OF EQUALITY. 189 

and though wine was not forbidden, no one was allowed to use a 
light in going home, in order that all risk of intemperance might 
be avoided. But at this public repast the citizens were not suf- 
fered even to choose their places. They were classed in companies 
of fifteen: and each company admitted persons to fill up vacancies 
by a ballot, in which a single dissentient was sufficient to exclude. 
Gymnastic exercises occupied the whole time not given to war 
and the chase,, while the season of youth continued ; at a mature 
age idleness was regarded as the peculiar privilege of the free. 

If the Spartan system outraged all the feelings and tastes of 
our nature, and treated men as mere animals for the purpose of 
improving the breed of soldiers, it did no less violence to every 
prudential principle upon which the political structure of society 
rests, for the purpose of maintaining an imaginary impossible 
equality, loosening all ties, and confounding the whole community 
into a single family. The whole land of the country was divided 
into small parcels — 9000 for the Spartans themselves, 30,000 for 
the country people (periceci) — each parcel was calculated to suf- 
fice for supporting a family,* and no person was allowed either 
to sell, or exchange, or devise his lot so that his eldest or other 
male heir might be disappointed of the succession. The use of 
gold and silver, or of any money but pieces of iron a pound in 
weight, was strictly forbidden, as well as of all ornaments, and all 
luxuries of every kind. Each person was allowed to interfere 
with his neighbour's children, and correct them as if they were 
his own. Every one could in like manner use his neighbour's 
cattle, or his dogs in hunting, or his arms or furniture,, and, as 
far as laws could provide for it, or encourage it, all men's goods 
were in common, there being only separate property recognised 
in the soil. But it was probably by inculcating the duty of 
freely lending rather than by recognising any absolute right that 
this community was sought to be established. 

The most hateful part of the Spartan economy remains to be 
mentioned : in no part of Greece, or indeed of the ancient world, 
was there so large a proportion of slaves. Their numbers do not 
anywhere appear ; but as all authorities are agreed that they were 
far more numerous than in any other state, as we know that in 

* Each person was supposed to have seventy bushels of grain for himself, and twelve 
for his wife, with wine and fruits in proportion. Eighty-two bushels may have been 
about seven quarters of our measure. 



190 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE SPARTA. [CH. XV. 

Attica there were 400,000 slaves to about 40,000 free inhabitants, 
and as we moreover are informed that no less than 50,000 were 
carried away by the ^tolians in one incursion upon Sparta, we may 
form some notion how abundant the slave population must have been. 
It consisted of three classes — the common household slaves, taken 
in war or acquired by purchase, and their descendants ; the Helots, 
or descendants of the ancient inhabitants, whom the Dorians or 
Lacedaemonians conquered ; and the Messenians, who were also, but 
at a later period, a conquered people. All writers are agreed that 
the Messenians were even more cruelly treated than the Helots ; 
and they, as well as the first-mentioned class, appear to have been 
held in absolute slavery, not being attached to the soil like the 
Helots, who were properly speaking serfs, and possessed the lands 
originally belonging to them upon the payment of a moderate and 
fixed rent. But their treatment was so inhuman, that we can 
with difficulty imagine that of the Messenians to have been worse, 
and are led rather to suppose that the difference referred to as 
indicating an inferiority of the Messenians must, be the serfage of 
the Helot, who could not be separated from the soil nor liberated 
from his bondage without the public authority. Hence his condi- 
tion is frequently described as something between liberty and 
slavery. It was no doubt the more cruel for being the less abso- 
lutely dependent. The supposed rights, the fear of resistance, 
the wealth which he even was allowed to possess, all exasperated 
the ferocious Spartan against him, and having no protection 
either in the law or its administration, constant suffering was his 
lot. He was hunted like a beast ; he was compelled to work at 
the hardest and most degrading employments ; he was dragged to 
the field and exposed to all the toils and dangers of war. When 
the Spartan youths were to be taught how to conduct ambushes, 
it was by sallying forth from the woods and murdering the Helots 
as they escaped, that the lesson of " glorious war" w r as made easy. 
Nay, in returning home at night a Spartan, always armed, hap- 
pening to meet some of these wretched beings, would wound or 
kill them in sport. The fear of their revolt was at the bottom of 
all this cruelty ; and on one occasion when 2,000 had volunteered 
to serve the country in a dangerous expedition, and were with un- 
heard-of perfidy rewarded by emancipation, the fear of their 
martial prowess was such, that they are said to have been all 
murdered in cold blood, all having immediately disappeared. 



CH. XV.] EPHORI. 191 

*' They made them disappear/' says the historian, " and no one 
knew how each of them perished."* 

It appears that after the constitution as settled by Lycurgus 
had lasted somewhat more than a century and a quarter, a ma- 
terial change was introduced. There probably had at all times 
existed magistrates called ephori, or overseers; and they may 
have had jurisdiction in private causes, or suits between indivi- 
duals. It is also possible that their influence may have gradually 
increased until they assumed a large share in the government. 
But the weight of authority is in favour of that account which re- 
presents them to have been either altogether created, or, which is 
more likely, armed with extended rights, by one of the kings ; 
and the most rational theory seems to be this. The senate, like 
all aristocratic bodies, had so encroached both upon the royal 
prerogative and upon the rights of the people in the assemblies, 
that an alliance or co-operation was effected between the kings and 
the people. The kings, without the people, had no direct power 
in peace and in domestic concerns ; but if they could obtain their 
support against the common oppressor, by claiming a restoration 
of popular rights, the royal authority must gain by the change. 
This was probably the view which Theopompus according to 
some, Chilon according to others, had in arming the Ephori with 
new powers, or as the commonly received account has it, of 
creating the office, as a protection for the people against the 
senate. A protection against the crown was obviously unnecessary 
in the reduced state of the royal authority; but the Ephori were 
empowered to protect the people against all magistrates as well 
as against the senate. They were five in number, and chosen in 
the assembly without any qualification of class or of property ; so 
that persons of the humblest condition and greatest obscurity 
might hold the office. Other magistrates must have had at least 
wherewithal to pay the very moderate contributions required for 
the support of the public table ; but the Ephori needed not have 
even that small fortune. Aristotle uses a remarkable expression 
respecting the effect of giving the people this voice in the govern- 
ment, though he greatly disapproves the allowing persons of no 
weight in character or in station to hold such power. " The 
people," he says, iC rests in quiet or leads a quiet life (ri(rv%a^i) 
from having a share in the government.'^ 

* Thucyd., iv. 80. E<p vxo-ccv rt aurovs are his expressive words. 
Ar., Pol., lib. ii. 



192 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — SPARTA. [CH. XV. 

The resemblance of the Epbori to the Roman tribunes has 
often been remarked; and they appear to have usurped a consi- 
derably larger share of power. They not only judged in all 
private causes, which probably was their original office, but they 
assumed the right to inflict fines at their pleasure for all offences 
except capita] ones, and to levy these fines upon the offender. 
They equnlly with the kings and the senate had the privilege 
of convoking the assembly of the people, and of propounding 
laws and measures. They could also convoke the senate, and 
they sat and voted in it. They were the only persons who 
did not rise upon the entrance of the kings into any public as- 
sembly. The most important power, however, which they claimed 
and constantly exercised, was that of removing and punishing 
magistrates for malversation in office, or for oppressing the peo- 
ple. The language employed by authors would lead to the belief 
that the Epbori not only denounced, but themselves tried and 
condemned on these occasions.* It is, however, probable that 
in graver cases they brought the party before the assembly ; 
but they certainly had the power of interrupting the magistrate 
during his office, and of casting him into prison. They assumed 
the power also of putting the kings themselves on their trial ; 
but it is more distinctly stated that when a king was to be 
tried the senate sat with the Ephori as judges, the other king 
presiding ; and in case of condemnation, there lay an appeal to 
the people. Instances are cited of this power being exercised ; 
but that of Agis, who was put to death, with his mother and 
grandmother, in circumstances of extreme and even brutal cruelty, 
must be regarded as the violent act of partisans in a revolutionary 
movement. When Pausanias was tried the senate were equally 
divided, but the Ephori voting with the fourteen who were for an 
acquittal, he escaped. Each king monthly took an oath to 
govern according to the laws, and the Ephori on the part of the 
people also swore that his dominion should be supported as long 
as he kept his oath; a compact strongly resembling that of the 
Spanish and other feudal monarchies. f 



* 'Ev0vs Tugazgnux KoXa^oua^ (Xen. Rep. Lac, viii.) : " they punish directly and 
on the instant/' But when speaking of capital punishment, he only says they bring to 
trial ii; ayuva.. 

f The important subject of the Ephori has given rise to considerable controversy, 
chiefly as to the manner and time of their introduction into the constitution. Xeno- 
phon, though he does not in very distinct terms say so, yet plainly intends to state that 



CH- XV.] EPHORAL USURPATIONS. 193 

The most constant and arbitrary interference in all departments 
military as well as civil, soon proved that the Ephori had attained a 
power which was more than a match for both kings and senate com- 
bined. They assumed the general power of executing the laws, and 
of enforcing the decrees of the assembly, as well as superintending 
all other magistrates ; they took upon them also the general cen- 
sorial power, the Harmosynse being forced to act in subordination 
to their authority ; and they exercised a universal civil jurisdiction, 
though the kings, who originally held this in their own hands, 

Lycurgus introduced them. {Rep. Lac, cap. viii.) The word {trvyxarearxiuciffeu) im- 
plying that the chief men {r^ocncoi), with whom he had described Lycurgus as having 
acted, joined him in introducing the kpo^ua. It is hardly correct, therefore, to cite 
Xenophon, as Barthelemy {Voy. An., iv., 460, 4to. ed.) has done, for the position that 
it was not Lycurgus, but the principal citizens who created the office, and to join his 
authority with that of Aristotle, Cicero, and others, who date the change about a cen- 
tury later. The Abbe cites Plutarch as an authority also to the same effect. But he 
afterwards cites another passage to show that the Ephori raised a popular tumult against 
the introduction of Lycurgus's changes. Here, then, as in so many other instances; 
that writer (Plutarch) is too careless to be of much weight as an authority. There are, 
also, inconsistent passages in Plato to the same effect, namely, Epist. viii., and De Legg. 
iii. The authority of Aristotle appears entitled to much greater respect, and he ex- 
presses himself without any hesitation {De Rep., v., 11), although he had dis- 
tinctly before him the institution of the Cosmi at Crete, and had in a former book com- 
pared the Ephori to them (xi., 10). U. Emmius {De Rep. Lac.) gives the preference 
to this opinion, and N. Cragius (ii., 4) leans to the same side. J, Meursius, however 
{Miscell. Lac, ii., 4), cites a passage of Diog. Laert, ascribing to Chilon, one of the 
Seven Sages, the appointment of the Ephori to govern along with the kings. That a 
magistrate of this name was known among the Messenians as well as the Cretans seems 
to be generally admitted, although his powers were probably much more limited than 
those of the Ephori soon became at Sparta. If, indeed, we can trust the speech which 
Plutarch puts into the mouth of Cleomenes {Fit. Cleom.), the kings originally appointed 
them as their deputies when absent from the city ; and this is a much more probable 
account than the somewhat romantic story told of Theopompus, that he created the 
office expressly for the purpose of being a bridle on the royal authority, saying to his 
wife, when she accused him of weakening the power he was to leave his son, that it 
would he more lasting, though smaller. Aristotle adopts this story, contrary to his 
wonted sagacity. Cicero {De Legg., iii., 7) also says that Theopompus created the 
Ephori to counteract the kings {oppositi regibus), as the tribunes were made to counteract 
the consuls. The most probable solution of the difficulty, and which goes far to recon- 
cile the various accounts, is, that there were Ephori before even Lycurgus's time, who 
might be lieutenants of the kings in their absence, and might in the course of time 
come to exercise jurisdiction even while the kings were at home ; but that in the time 
of Theopompus, when their authority had become somewhat greater, a change was 
made which gave them, and through them the people, a power of resisting the senate. 
It must be borne in mind that the reign of Theopompus, and consequently the date 
assigned to the change in the power of the people through the Ephori, coincides with 
the important event of the Messenians being completely subdued, and their territory 
divided among the Lacedaemonians — an event which probably increased greatly the 
numbers of the landowners or privileged class. 

PART II. O 



194 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — SPARTA. [CH. XV. 

retained the right of sitting with them in judgment upon causes. 
The Ephori despatched ambassadors, received those of foreign 
nations, levied troops, instructed their commanders, provided for 
their pay and sustenance ; in short, exercised the whole powers of 
government, either of themselves with the consent of the people, 
or by direct authority derived from the decrees of the popular 
assembly. They appear to have held a far more absolute and 
undivided authority than the Roman tribunes. Perhaps at the 
most brilliant period of the Spartan history, and before the con- 
quest of Athens had relaxed the ancient discipline, they resembled 
the Committee of Public Safety in France, as far as regarded their 
power and their success. Nor in the struggles which at various 
times ensued between them and the other governing bodies, the 
kings and senate, was the senate at all united. The Ephori had 
always a party, often the majority of the senate, under their in- 
fluence ; and the only risk which their power seems ever to have 
run of being destroyed was when a king, availing himself of their 
number (as the patrician party did at Rome of the number of the 
tribunes), obtained the co-operation of several Ephori against 
their colleagues, and against the order which they represented. 
We are left without any information as to the power possessed by 
each of them individually; and though it seems probable from 
their sitting as a court or body, that each had not independent 
authority like the Roman tribune, yet the Spartan history abounds 
with instances of a single Ephorus issuing his orders to the generals 
of armies, and commanding the arrest of magistrates — whether 
with the assent of his colleagues, or by usurpation, or by right, 
we have no means of ascertaining : one or the other of the two first 
suppositions seems the most probable. 

From the composition of the Spartan ruling body, the Ho- 
moioi, it seems manifest that as its numbers decreased, and as 
no additions were ever made by allowing foreigners to be enrolled, 5 " 
while the numbers of the Lacedaemonians, the people of foreign 

* It is said that only two instances of any snch naturalization were known. We 
have no distinct account of the Laconian population ; for Plutarch (Fit. Lye.) gives 
three totally different statements in the same passage ; but we are told that they could 
send 30,000 infantry and 1500 cavalry into the field. (Arist. Pol. ii.) At Plataea 
they had 45,000 men, but chiefly Helots, there being only 5,000 Spartans and as many 
Lacedaemonians. If the 31,500 is exclusive of serfs and mercenaries, the population 
must have been 140,000 at least. The proportion of Spartans we have no means of 
ascertaining; but Xenophon {Hist. Gr. vi.) mentions 700 Spartans as their whole 



CH. XV.] ARISTOCRATIC GOVERNMENT. 195 

and of servile origin,, greatly increased, the power which was gained 
by the people, and of which the Ephori were the depositaries, 
necessarily became the power of a privileged order, and that the 
Ephori were then the representatives of an aristocracy. At first, 
when the Spartans were a numerous body, and the rest of the 
community insignificant in bulk, the power, as far as any was pos- 
sessed, independent of the kings and the senate, might be consi- 
dered as that of a democracy. But the kings and senate together 
far outweighed the people until the power of the Ephori was ex- 
tended, and therefore it must be considered that the first form of 
government was rather aristocratic or oligarchical than demo- 
cratic. For although the senators were chosen by the people, 
and though at that period the people consisted of the whole nation, 
except slaves and foreigners, yet the kings, who were taken from a 
class consisting of two families, must be regarded as a part, and a 
very important part, of the governing body, the senate ; while the 
rest of the body must have had, with the aid of the kings, a pre- 
ponderating influence in the votes by which successive vacancies 
were filled up. There was thus, in substance and effect, a ruling 
body irremovable, and only liable to be changed so slowly by the 
people at large, even independent of the senate's influence, that 
little real power remained beyond the circle of the body. The 
rise of the people's power gave a democratic form to the govern- 
ment, with a counteracting power on the part of the senate; and 
w T hen what had been the popular body became a select or pri- 
vileged order, engrossing that large share of power, and excluding 
the body of the inhabitants from all civil privileges whatever, the 
government must be considered to have become wholly aristo- 
cratic, the aristocracy consisting of three branches, the kings, the 
senate, and the Spartans, or homoioi. It appears sufficiently clear 
that the Ephori were in all respects either the agents and crea- 
tures, or the leaders and masters of the privileged class, the most 
powerful branch of this aristocracy, and were thus the tyrants of 
the people at large when they co-operated with the senate and the 
kings, and when resisted by one or both of these two classes, their 



numbers at Leuctra, and adds that 400 were killed, there being 1000 Lacedaemonians 
killed. This would make, if the proportions were preserved, 1750 Lacedaemonians. 
At the battle of Corinth, he says they had 6,600 and 7,200 allies (ib., lib. iv.) The 
lowest estimate in the passage of Plutarch gives 4,500 Spartans in Lycurgus's time, 
and the highest gives 9000, the Lacedaemonians being 30,000. 

o 2 



196 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — SPARTA. [CH. XV. 

tyrants also. The constitution was aristocratical, and as the op- 
pressed people had a very numerous body of slaves and of serfs 
still more oppressed than themselves for their natural allies, the 
result took place which never fails to follow from a minority 
ruling over a hostile majority ; terror was called in to supply the 
want of force, and a perpetual apprehension of the Spartans that, 
the Helots and Messenians might join the Lacedaemonians in 
throwing off the common yoke, mingled with an occasional alarm 
that those servile castes might join a foreign enemy, was some- 
times the cause, and always the pretext, of the dreadful cruelties 
exercised upon those hapless races, to the lasting disgrace of the 
Spartan name, 

There can be little doubt that if the independence of the state 
had continued for some ages, and the privileged body had been 
reduced still more in numbers, while the bulk of the people in- 
creased, the same struggle would have ensued which elevated the 
plebeian order at Rome, and the Lacedaemonians would have 
obtained the preponderance. The Natural Aristocracy would then 
have been formed without regard to Spartan extraction. The 
families of distinguished men, the descendants of the senators and 
'kings, the persons of wealth and renown, would have held the 
highest places in the senate and the magistracy. While the 
commonwealth lasted no such arrangement took place. But 
there must have been the usual conflict of individuals and of their 
supporters — the usual struggle of parties for power — and the Na- 
rural Aristocracy, to a certain extent, must have had its influence 
within the circle of the privileged class (homoioi), among whom 
the senators, in all probability, carried on the intrigues of faction. 
We find the kings and other leading men paying court to the 
Ephori ; Agesilaus always rose when they entered the room, as 
indeed he courted the senate by making a present to each person 
on his election. There was thus the Natural Aristocracy, as it 
were, within the Artificial, and the party game was played with- 
out any reference to the people, because as yet the people had 
obtained no privileges, and it was not worth the while of any 
party to court them. They might be formidable enough in an 
insurrection, just as the Helots, the Messenians, and the slaves 
might be ; and accordingly Cinadon, in describing his resources, 
names the Lacedaemonians, the periceci, with the freedmen and 
the serfs. But until a faction had determined on rebellion the 



CH. XV.] QUESTION OF CLASSIFICATION. 197 

help of the people was unavailing, and the proceedings of party 
are always framed upon the plan of only using the means which 
the existing constitution makes lawful. 

The ancients were a good deal divided in opinion upon the 
question to what class of governments the Spartan properly 
belonged. Plato, in one passage {Leg. iv.), seems to think that 
the difficulty can hardly be solved; but he, in another passage 
of the same book, treats the denial of it being an aristocracy 
as absurd (aroTrov). Aristotle, without pronouncing a decided 
opinion himself, says that some consider it as a mixture of 
monarchy, oligarchy, and democracy, while others regard the 
ephoral power as a tyranny, and the institution as in many re- 
spects democratic {Pol. ii.). But he afterwards says that the 
power of the Ephori converted the aristocracy into a democracy. 
Plutarch so entirely differs in his view of the question, that in one 
of his works (on the Three kinds of Government), he gives Sparta 
as the example of aristocracy ; and in another (Life of Lycurgus), 
he describes the power of the Ephori as the power of the aristo- 
cracy. Others, as Isocrates (Panath.), regard it as a mixture of 
aristocracy and democracy. The safest course seems to be that 
which we have ventured to take, of considering the different periods 
of its history as presenting different forms of the government, and 
of distinguishing carefully between the Spartan body and the 
nation at large. 

But it is a much more difficult thing to ascertain how far we 
can trust the accounts of so strange and unnatural a state of 
society as the Spartan institutions are represented to have esta- 
blished; the more especially as those accounts appear frequently 
to involve contradictions, as well as matters the operation of 
which they afford no means of comprehending. 

1. Among the former class may be reckoned those extraordi- 
nary provisions respecting female chastity, to which reference has 
already been made. Children born out of wedlock had no civil 
rights ; but adulterine bastardy was occasionally encouraged by 
the law. A strict watch was kept over the chastity of women (a 
vigilance which the best accounts show to have been exceedingly 
ineffectual), while, with the husband's consent, the wife was suf- 
fered to form a connexion with another man merely to gratify his 
passion, and independent of the adultery permitted for the sake of 
securing an offspring. Then, with all this indifference on the 



L98 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE SPARTA. [CH. XV. 

subject, it was a common form of swearing at Sparta to wish an 
enemy four great curses, of which one was, that his wife might 
have a gallant. It is true that the other three (a taste for build- 
ing, for embankments, and for horses) all turn upon expense, 
and so the gallantry might be reckoned only pernicious from its 
costliness. 

The compelling all to dine in public seems difficult to reconcile 
with the ballot and exclusion from the messes. How were those 
excluded to comply with the law ? Then how were those to obey 
who could not pay the monthly contribution? Was the table 
only for the homoioi? But then the hypomeiones must have had 
more freedom than the privileged class ; and so greatly was free- 
dom prized above everything else, that the Spartan looked down 
with contempt on all who even laboured voluntarily, and respected 
the indolent as the most free. 

The only meat allowed is said to have been the black broth 
and boiled pork. Yet we are told that whoever went out to hunt 
sent what he caught to the public table. By whom was the game 
eaten, and how was it cooked to avoid improving the fare, and 
introducing a taste for luxury? 

Each person was allowed to drink as much wine as he pleased, 
in order to show that reliance must be placed on his temperance, 
and that it was no virtue unless it were voluntary. But then, to 
prevent it from being voluntary, everyone must find his way home 
in the dark. Not to mention that this late hour of dining or sup- 
ping assumes the whole company to have eaten in private during 
the day, contrary to the fundamental principles of the system. • 

There was an inscription or notice fixed to the wall, and the 
young Spartans were often reminded of it by the elders ; nothing 
•said in the dinner-room was to be repeated out-of-doors. But as 
all the people, or nearly all, were admitted, it is difficult to under- 
stand how any harm could be done by the disclosure. 

2. But the division of property seems the least comprehensible 
part of the polity. The allotments of land could not be sold or 
divided, and all encouragement was given to bringing up a numer- 
ous family. Then how were the younger children maintained ? 
Yet the law seemed to assume that every citizen had the means 
of subsistence; for in the earlier times all who served in war 
defrayed their whole expenses, and every male from twenty to 
sixty years of age was a soldier. It was only in later times that 



CH. XV. J PARADOXICAL STATEMENTS. 199 

the state furnished the expenses of its troops. After the system of 
Lycurgus had been established about a century, the conquest of 
Messene gave a large increase of national domain; but two or 
three generations must have again filled the country with paupers. 
Were the Helots and Messenians (the actual owners of the land, 
subject to fixed rents) regarded as liable to be dispossessed, that 
is, to have an additional number of manorial lords imposed upon 
them as the numbers of the people increased? And yet all 
authors are agreed in stating that the rent paid by these serfs was 
never raised. Observe — no explanation of the difficulty is afforded 
by the fact of the Spartans diminishing in numbers ; for the 
Lacedaemonians, the periceci, freemen inhabiting the country 
districts, had the property in the land as well as the Spartans, 
and their numbers increased exceedingly. At the first division 
30,000 allotments were distributed among them, above three 
times as many as fell to the share of the townsfolk. It is another 
difficulty that while all fortunes were required to be equal, certain 
citizens, because of their wealth, furnished horses for the cavalry ; 
and these were used only by inferior troops, the infantry being 
reckoned the more honourable service. Nor will it suffice to urge 
as an explanation of such difficulties that the ancient writings have 
preserved only an imperfect record of the facts ; for the ancients 
themselves appear to have felt how hard it was to comprehend 
the Spartan economy. Aristotle points out the inconsistencies of 
some of Lycurgus's provisions (Pol. ii.). Plato, as well as he, 
describes the luxury and insolence of the Spartan women, whose 
domineering nature and profligate habits have hardly been denied 
by any writer excepting Plutarch. 

The prohibiting a circulating medium appears to be if possible 
more unintelligible. For if it was meant to prevent the accumu- 
lation of wealth, no such object could be accomplished, unless 
barter were forbidden; and though free men and women might 
not be allowed to work at all handicrafts, in some they could em- 
ploy themselves : at any rate they could buy slaves and make 
them work. There were prohibitions of luxuries, such as fine 
furniture and costly ornaments : but any one might amass such 
property, though he could not display it; and to the possession of 
slaves and cattle there were no limits. 

It was however held that every man's cattle might be used 
freely by his neighbours ; his horses ridden, his slaves driven, his 



200 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — SPARTA. [CH. XV. 

children corrected. Then what subjects of dispute could there be 
for judges to determine, except perhaps assaults? And yet we 
are told that the magistrates sat daily to determine causes, and 
that the army was always accompanied by judges to settle the 
disputes between individuals, without troubling the commanding 
officers. Though no professional advocates were suffered, the 
character of the people was litigious ; and their avarice was almost 
as proverbial as the want of all chastity in both sexes. * 

In all the doubt and difficulty, however, which encompass the 
subject, there appears every reason to believe that the extra- 
ordinary state of society which Lycurgus's institutions either 
created or completed had a duration very little to be expected 
from the principles upon which it was founded, and only to be 
explained by the system of education which formed its principal 
constituent part. The original distribution of property must 
needs have been constantly broken in upon ; and the complaints 
made of harsh creditors, at an early period, prove that wealth 
was gradually accumulated in different hands. The introduction 
of luxuries, to a certain extent, also took place, and the severe 
discipline generally was in some measure relaxed. But the 
great features of the system were to be traced according to the 
commonly received accounts at the end of five centuries, although 
the Peloponnesian war and the conquest of Athens had produced 
considerable changes, and though Xenophon admits, at the end 
of three centuries, that important deviations had taken place from 
the ancient regimen, particularly in the disposition of men to obtain 
provincial and foreign governments, to amass wealth, and rather to 
possess eminent places than to qualify themselves for deserving 
them {Rep. Lac. xv.). It can hardly be doubted that the de- 
generacy went on increasing till the wars of Lysander and Agesi- 
laus. The consequent intercourse with foreigners, and espec r ally 
•with the East, a century later, introduced great laxity of discipline, 
and rendered the Spartan habits little less luxurious than those of 
other nations. A great change in the laws respecting property 
had been introduced, probably soon after the Peloponnesian war, 
though the time is uncertain, by one of the Ephori, Epitadius, 
who carried an ordinance allowing the alienation of property both 
by gift, sale, and devise. But it is probable that the strictness of 
the former law had been gradually relaxed before this change, 

* Axxavfeiv was the common expression in Greece for unnatural practices. 



CH. XV.] PROCEEDINGS OF PARTIES. 201 

and that it only added the power of devise to a right already 
recognized of conveyance inter vivos. 

A considerable number, however, of the privileged class 
(homoioi) still continued to take a pride in adhering to the 
old discipline, and to distinguish themselves by this which had 
now become a peculiarity among the Spartans, as it had once 
been a mark of the whole class, distinguishing them from the 
Lacedaemonians and others of the common orders. It appears 
always to have been regarded with respect by the people at 
large; and the general recurrence to it made a principal part 
of the reforms occasionally propounded by those who were 
desirous of changing the aristocratic form which the govern- 
ment had assumed. We are not informed in what respect 
this was urged by Cinadon ; but it formed a material part of 
the plan proposed by Agis, and afterwards executed by Cleo- 
menes. Agis having become king about four centuries and a 
half after the time of Lycurgus, took the lead of the popular 
party, and his colleague, Leonidas, appears to have been at the 
head of the Spartan or privileged order. Agis, with the con- 
currence of at least one of the Ephori, Lysander, whose elec- 
tion he had influenced, proposed the redistribution of the lands, 
the reduction of the Spartans to their original allotment, the 
grant of the residue to the Lacedaemonians, the admission of 
these to all the privileges of citizens, and the filling up their num- 
bers from the periceci, together with the subjection of all classes 
of citizens to the ancient discipline. He made a voluntary sur- 
render of the whole property, real and personal, of his family, as 
an earnest of the sincerity and honesty of his motives in bringing 
forward this important measure. The senate rejected the propo- 
sition by a majority of one ; the people supported Agis ; Lysander 
impeached Leonidas, the leader of the aristocratic party ; and, 
with the aid of the people, dethroned him, placing Cleombrotus 
in his room. A new election of Ephori was on the point of restor- 
ing Leonidas, when Agis and Cleombrotus by force removed them 
from their office, and prosecuted their reforms with the help of 
Agesilaus, whose election as an Ephorus they had brought about. 
He appears to have betrayed them, having a large estate and 
heavy debts, and resting satisfied with a measure for absolving all 
creditors, but delaying the promised distribution of lands. This 
completely alienated the people from the party of the two kings 



202 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — SPAKTA. [CH. XV. 

and Agesilaus, who began to act oppressively, and excite a strong 
disposition in favour of Leonidas. A party of the aristocracy 
therefore recalled him, and the people, deceived in their expecta- 
tions of the only reform they cared for, stood by and saw Leonidas 
restored, and Agis dethroned and barbarously murdered, with his 
mother and grandmother. Cleomenes, who succeeded his father, 
Leonidas, and married Agis's widow, is represented as having 
been induced by her to renew the measures of her husband, for 
whom she is said to have filled him with the greatest admiration. 
It is much more probable that he found the power of the Ephori 
had become intolerable, and that the war which was carrying on 
with the Acha?ans gave him a pretext for introducing a change of 
government, as indeed it afforded a good reason for inducing the 
people to make extraordinary efforts, by awakening their zeal for 
the public service. What we know for certain is that he put four 
of the Ephori to death, abolished the office, and banished eighty of 
their partisans, brought forward at the same time the measures 
of Agis for dividing the lands, set the example, like Agis, by giv- 
ing up his own estates, admitted a selected body of the periceci, 
so as to complete the number of the homoioi, cancelled all debts, 
and restored the strict education and discipline established by 
Lycurgus. It should seem that for some time at least he had 
been sole king. How this happened we are not told, but the 
prejudices of the people being strongly against monarchy, or the 
government of one king, to which they had not been accustomed, 
he had his brother elected king with him, being the first instance 
of both kings taken from the same family. These changes hap- 
pened in the year 230 b. c. The vigour which they gave the 
government enabled Cleomenes to carry everything before him in 
the war with the Achaeans, who could only make head against 
him by obtaining the aid of Antigonus, the Macedonian general. 
He defeated the Spartans, drove Cleomenes from his kingdom, 
and upon the same principle which led the Russians and their 
allies to maintain the Polish anarchy, restored the government of 
the Ephori, and indeed all that Cleomenes had abolished. The 
Spartans were soon after compelled to submit and join the Achaean 
league, abandoning for ever the institutions of Lycurgus. 

It is manifest that, before the time of Agis, the aristocracv had 
become divided into two classes, the wealthy families, about one 
hundred in number, and the remaining six hundred, who, though 



CH. XV.] DISTINCTION OF ORDERS. 203 

possessed of the political supremacy, were dependent upon the 
richer citizens, and probably in most cases their debtors. The 
class below these, the hypomeiones, and descendants of freedmen 
and foreigners, in all probability formed nearly the same kind of 
order with the poorer of the homoioi, and took part with them in 
supporting Agis and Cleomenes in their revolutionary measures ; 
hoping, if not to share in the lands distributed, at least to have 
their debts cancelled. The party of the Ephori, the aristocracy, 
or rather the oligarchy, as contradistinguished from the rest of the 
aristocracy (homoioi), were probably the wealthy families, eighty 
of whom Cleomenes banished. 



204 [ch. xvi. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS. 



Authors — Early History — Cecrops ; Theseus — Threefold Division of the People — An- 
cient Officers — Panathenaea — Kings — Archons — Eupatridae— Polemarch ; Epony- 
musj Basileus; Thesmothetae — Classes; Pedraei ; Diacrii ; Paralii — Anarchy — 
Draco— Solon — Errors respecting his Legislation — Solon's Reforms; Archons; Col- 
leges; Paredri — Courts of Justice — Areopagus — Heliastae — Inferior Magistrates — 
Pure Democracy — Classes of the People — Population — Slaves — Effects of Slavery ; 
Xenophon; Plato; Diogenes — Phyla? ; Phratriae ; Genea ; Trityes ; Demi — The 
Ecclesia — Senate — Elections; Scrutiny — Prytanes ; Epistata — Euthynae; Logistae — 
Voting; Ballot — Areopagus — Its Powers ; its Composition— Logistae; Euthynae — 
Mars Hill ; St. Paul — Heliaea — American Court — Ephetae. 

The government of Athens and the Athenian history generally 
are more fully known than those of Sparta. The writers whose 
works have reached us are all Athenians, or inhabitants of the 
colonies and provinces which had constant intercourse with 
Athens. They therefore, though living at a distance of time 
from the earlier stages of the constitution, were yet fully acquainted 
with its structure and working in their own age, and wherever 
they have left any uncertainty in treating of their earlier institu- 
tions it has rather been owing to their omitting to describe what 
they consider every one must know, than from the subject being 
unknown to themselves. The more early portions of their con- 
stitutional history are necessarily involved in the doubt and 
obscurity inseparable from such inquiries. 

About thirty years before the Phoenicians made their inroad 
into Greece, as we mentioned in Chapter XIII., Athens is sup- 
posed to have been founded by Cecrops. The date of this event 
is, as we before stated, variously assigned, Sir I. Newton placing 
it nearly five centuries later than the greater number of ancient 
authorities; but with the balance of probability altogether on his 



CH. XVI.] EARLY HISTORY. 205 

side, he assigns the year 1080 B.C. for the foundation of the 
city. 

Cecrops is generally believed to have come from Egypt ; but he 
may very possibly have been a chief of the Pelasgi, the original 
inhabitants of Greece ; and the Athenians over whom he obtained 
his dominion were most, probably a tribe of that nation, first called 
Cranai, from the name of a former chief, though they are fre- 
quently described as a tribe of the Ionians who had invaded 
Greece from Thessaly. Cecrops is represented as having col- 
lected them into twelve tribes or towns, of which Athens, then 
called after him Cecropia, was the most considerable, being built 
around a rocky hill or stronghold where he had fortified himself. 
The other towns were only very imperfectly under his dominion, 
each having its own chief and senate or council of elders, and all 
living in constant alarm from the Boeotians, a powerful nation in 
their neighbourhood, as well as in a state of frequent war with 
each other. Under the successors of Cecrops Athens retained, 
in general, the same kind of precarious and irregular influence 
over the other eleven states, and it was not till the time of The- 
seus, in the latter part of the tenth century before our era, that 
anything like a regular system of government can be said to have 
been established, even if we take the traditions which remain of 
his times as authentic history. The Cretans having obtained 
some decisive victories over the Athenians, he restored their inde- 
pendence ; and using the power which this gave him, partly by 
persuasion, partly by the protection which he could afford them 
against invasion, he induced the eleven towns to give up their se- 
parate councils, and all unite under one government and one 
council at Athens, whither he had attracted a great concourse 
and established in it a powerful force.* He is said to have given 
up in a great measure his own regal authority, retaining only the 
command of the forces and execution of the laws, and to have 
divided the people into three classes, the well-born or patricians 
{eupatridce),\ the agriculturists (geomori), and the artisans (de- 

* Thucyd., ii., 15, says he was powerful as well as prudent or wise — /tsra rov fynrou 

f 'Evtcct^'x.i, yiapo^oi, IvfMovgyoi. The division into four tribes whose names were 
repeatedly changed has probably given rise to some confusion ; for it is said that 
Erechtbeus gave them the names of armed artisans, farmers, and shepherds, whichi s 
plainly the threefold division expanded. Yet it is also possible that the two divisions 
were different, and that the fourfold division may have been only of the Eupatridae, or 
of the Eupatridae and Geomori. 



200 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — ATHENS. [CH. XVI. 

miurgi), confining to the first the right of sitting in the council 
or senate,* of superintending religious rites, making laws, and 
holding magistracies. There seems to have been a judicature 
(prytaneum) as well as a council established, f What these ma- 
gistracies were, or how they were conferred, and how the council 
and judicature were chosen, we have not the least information, 
except that polemarchi, or commanders, colacretce, or treasurers, 
a (t tier arii, or collectors of imposts, and phylobasileis, or chiefs 
of tribes, are all mentioned occasionally as most ancient officers ; 
but the frequent mention in after times of a popular government 
as the work of Theseus makes it probable (as U. Emmius has 
observed t) that the choice of magistrates was lodged in the upper 
class, if not in the others also. We are equally ignorant in what 
manner the confederate or subject towns sent their deputies to 
the council, or indeed whether they sent any at all, and were not 
entirely under the power of the Athenian government, for the sup- 
port of which all appear to have paid tribute. § But the one 
institution which can with tolerable certainty be traced to Theseus, 
and which continued ever after, had a direct reference to the 
federal union, and was plainly designed to maintain it. A yearly 
festival was established, at which all the inhabitants of Attica 
were present, and which was hence called the panathencea. |j 

The chiefs or kings who succeeded Theseus soon extended 
their authority, and diminished that of the council and people ; 
and Codrus, who reigned about a century and a half after him, 
having fallen (it is said, voluntarily sacrificed himself) in the first 
war between the Athenians and Dorians, the royal power was 
much abridged, and the name of king changed to archon or first 
magistrate. A century and a half later,^[ the archon's office in- 
stead of being for life was given only for ten years, and in less 

* BouXivr^iov. Plutarch {Fit. Thes.) says the senate still met in the same place 
where Theseus had planted it. 

f Plutarch (whose account is the most minute in other respects) mentions less dis- 
tinctly than Thucydides there being a prytaneum as well as a senate. 

+ Vet. Grcecia. {De Rep. Ath) 

§ Thucyd., ii., 15. 

|| T\tt.va.6r,ia.Kx.. There were other games called fiiroixia. or migratory, and truvotxia, 
or cohabitative, with a reference to a union of the provinces, similar to that of the <rav«- 
fnvaiK. 

<J[ The ordinary account makes the hereditary archons continue for 315 years 
(C Sigon., De Rep. Ath., and De Ath. Temp. — U. Emmius, Vet. Gr. Rep., Ath.) ; but 
the Newtonian account is followed in the text. 



CH. XVI.] ARCHONS. 207 

than fifty years it became annual. The principal change intro- 
duced on the death of Codrus appears to have been that the 
archon was rendered accountable to the senate and people like 
other magistrates ; but the office continued to be hereditary, the 
senate and people only interfering in cases of disputed succession. 
When the decennial archons were substituted, the election became 
vested in the people, that is, in the patrician class (eupatridce) ; and 
when the office became annual, it was held not by one, but by 
nine, chosen in the same manner,* of whom one was the chief, 
giving his name to the year, and hence called eponymus ; another 
was polemarch, or commander of the forces ; and a third was 
called king, having the superintendence of religious matters. The 
other six were called thesmothetce, having the guardianship of 
the laws, probably, with the patrician body, a legislative, and 
certainly a large judicial power. The whole government appears 
to have been in the hands of the nine, and they Were elected by 
the patrician order, and out of their own body. The order had 
now obtained great power over the community. They had lent 
money to the poorer landowners, and by usury not only had 
amassed sufficient wealth to purchase almost all the land in the 
country, but had obtained the power of exercising great oppres- 
sion over the inferior classes. There were no longer any consi- 
derable number of small proprietors, unless in the mountainous 
districts; and the country in consequence of the distribution of 
landed property was split into parties opposing each other with 
bitter animosity. These 'factions had continued from the time of 
Cylon, who, endeavouring to destroy the influence of the Alcmeeo- 
nidse family, descendants of the last hereditary archon, and to 
make himself tyrant or chief of the state, had failed in the attempt, 
But three parties were now formed — the pedrcei, inhabitants of the 
plains, who were oligarchical; the diacrii, inhabitants of the hilly 
country, who were democratic; and the par alii, or those con- 
nected with the commerce of the coast, who wavered between the 
other two, but generally were said to favour a mixed form of 
government. The confusion which their proceedings first occa- 

* Thucydides (i., 126) speaks of the nine archons as well established at the time of 
Cylon's sedition. But they must have been known from the time of Creon, the first 
yearly archon, which by the common chronology was 90 years, and by the Newtonian 
45, before Solon. The former places Solon at the beginning, the latter about the middle 
of the sixth century before Christ. 



208 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — ATHENS. [CH. XVI. 

sioned, induced the community to call upon Draco, a man of tried 
integrity and great capacity, though of a severe and unyielding 
temper, to prepare a code of laws, which till then they never had 
possessed ; and when this was found ineffectual, chiefly because 
he had left everything untouched that related 1o the government 
and its administration, recourse was a few years afterwards had 
to Solon, one of the wisest, and most learned men of the age. 
Being himself of a noble family, he obtained the confidence of the 
patricians, who seeing that some reform was absolutely necessary 
to prevent anarchy, were better pleased it should be in the hands 
of a man of their own order than intrusted to the common people. 
He was enabled to keep, and even to extend his favour with both 
the patrician and plebeian classes : with the former, by giving 
the constitution a somewhat aristocratic character in one important 
particular ; with the latter, by a strong measure which he carried 
for relieving debtors not only from arrest, but from a considerable 
portion of their existing burdens.* 

Of course everything that had existed before, as well as every- 
thing that he introduced into the institutions of the state, was 
afterwards ascribed to Solon. But it is demonstrated beyond all 
possibility of question that the principal feature of the government, 
the nine yearly archons, with their several departments, existed at 
least half a century before Solon's legislation, — that the Areopa- 
gus, though greatly improved by him, was established long before 
his time, — and that the chief doubt rests upon the existence of a 
senate in former ages, though some council of the kind probably 
was established. It is certain that he adopted the more important 
of the fundamental principles of the old constitution, and retained 
its most important parts. Then, as many things were ascribed to 
him which he found already established and only improved, so 
other things, which were introduced long after his age, were sup- 
posed to be parts of his plan. It becomes therefore very difficult 
to describe the government as he left it, and then to trace the 
changes which it afterwards underwent. We know that most of 
his institutions were preserved; that the usurpation of Pisistratus 
during his lifetime, and the supreme power which he left to his 

* The Seisachthia, or relief from burdens, is variously understood. Some conceive 
it to hare been an extinction or reduction of interest upon an increase of the principal, 
which seems improbable ; others represent it as a raising the denomination of the cur- 
rency; others as a partial amnesty. 



ch. xvi.] solon's reforms. 209 

family (the Pisistratidse), did not change any of Solon's laws, and 
consisted only in their engrossing the chief of the offices which he 
had established ;* that Clisthenes upon their expulsion, half a 
century after Solon, extended the influence of the people, new 
modelled the tribes and senate, and greatly curbed the aristocracy ;f 
that Aristides thirty years later destroyed the last remains of the 
oligarchical power by opening all magistracies to the lowest class 
of the people; and that ultimately a republican government was 
established, though originally the form had inclined towards 
aristocracy. But the particular changes through which this event 
was accomplished we have no means of tracing, and it therefore 
becomes more convenient that we should at once proceed to con- 
sider the government in its last stage, when all the arrangements 
to which ancient writers refer had been introduced. We may, 
therefore, look at the constitution as it existed in Philip's time. 

The names and many of the duties of the ancient magistrates 
were retained by Solon ; but their powers were first in his time, 
and then by the gradual encroachments and final supremacy of 
the democracy, reduced within very narrow limits. They were 
all chosen by the people, and all held their offices for a year only. 
The principal change made by Solon in the form of their proceed- 
ings was that the archons before his time all acted separately — not 
merely the three first, but the six thesmothetse ; whereas he gave 
them the functions of two colleges, enabling them to sit together 
as judges. It should seem, however, that these six came to act 
chiefly in the capacity of judicial officers and guardians of the 
police of the city; the three chief archons presiding with two 
assessors each (paredri) in one or other of the ten high courts or 
tribunals in which civil and criminal justice was administered. 
In five of these courts the presiding archon chose by lot the other 
members of the court acting as jurors, and who generally 
amounted to five hundred, upon extraordinary occasions to twice 
as many in the more important court. In four of them, which 
tried homicides of different descriptions, the numbers were much 

* Herodotus (i., 59) praises Pisistratus for his good and just administration of the 
government, and says that he changed nothing of its fundamental principles. Thu- 
cydides (vi., 54) praises the valour and wisdom of the Pisistratidse, and says that they 
governed by the existing laws, always taking care to appoint themselves to the higher 
offices. 

f The changes recorded as made by Clisthenes, except the ostracism, do not appear 
to bear directly on the oligarchy. Concerning Clisthenes, see Herod., v., 66-69. 
PART II. P 



210 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS. [CH. XVI. 

smaller, and were taken from a list of fifty-one returned by the 
tribes. In one, the Areopagus, the places were held for life, and 
no jurors attended it. The person of every archon was held 
sacred, and any insult to him was punished by the loss of all 
civil rights. Their election was vested in the people, and, by the 
law of Aristides, abrogating that of Solon, every citizen was ca- 
pable of being chosen. But every person chosen underwent two 
scrutinies ; one before the senate, or rather a select body of the 
senate, the prytanes ; the other before the tribunal of the heliasts* 
They must show that they were descended of Athenian parents 
for three generations, that they had borne arms in the service of 
the state, and that their domestic character was free from reproach. 
At the end of their year they were eligible to the Areopagus upon 
passing their accounts, and undergoing a new scrutiny as to their 
official conduct. 

Of the inferior magistrates, some were chosen by the people, 
and others by lot. Most of these magistracies were in the hands 
often persons, each tribe choosing one either by election or by lot, 
and none held his office above a year. 

The various officers possessed some, but only a moderate de- 
gree of influence; the archons chiefly, when they could agree 
and act in one body. But the government could hardly be said 
to be administered by them at all. They were in truth the ser- 
vants or instruments of the great councils, the Assembly, the 
Senate, the Areopagus, and the Helia3a, all of which bodies being 
chosen annually, and chosen by lot, except the Areopagus, the 
government, might truly be said to be directly administered by the 
great body of the people. In what manner this administration 
was carried on we are now to see. 

The first division of the people is that into natives, foreigners 
(metoeci), and slaves. The numbers of the Athenian people have 
given rise to considerable dispute among antiquaries and political 
reasoners. Mr. Hume, in arguing against the supposed popu- 
lousness of ancient nations, f estimates the free inhabitants of 
Athens at 84,000, the foreigners at 40,000, and the slaves at 
160,000 only. But though he probably comes near enough the 

* The xvxx.oiti: seems to have come before the election ; the Sozipcctria, after. The 
former tried the qualification, as citizenship by three descents ; the latter scrutinized 
character. 

f Essays, Part II., 2. 



ch. xvi.] slavery; its effects. 211 

truth as to the two first classes, there is every reason to believe 
that the slaves were much more numerous ; according to the 
most credible accounts 400,000.* The treatment which they 
received was very different from that of the Spartan slaves, still 
more from that of the serfs or helots ; it appears not to have been 
extremely severe. Yet we may remark the extent to which 
slavery had perverted the feelings of even the worthiest and most 
humane persons from the manner in which such a writer as 
Xenophon speaks of the servile condition. He mentions the in- 
solence of slaves, and, indeed, of foreigners^ whom he treats as 
if they belonged to the class of freedmen, if not of slaves ; and he 
seems almost to complain of the law which prevented beating 
them, — that is, beating another man's slave to repress his inso- 
lence, — assigning as the only reason for the prohibition that other- 
wise there would be a risk of beating free citizens, who could not 
be distinguished from slaves by their outward f appearance. It 
is another proof how deeply rooted the existence of slavery was 
in the minds of the Greeks, indeed of all ancient nations, that free 
citizens of all their own states might be sold into slavery, and held 
as slaves equally with foreigners, or, as they were termed, bar- 
barians. Plato himself was, in returning from Syracuse, sold into 
slavery by the perfidy of a Spartan ambassador, acting in league 
with the tyrant Dionysius, to whom the philosopher had given 
some offence : he was ransomed for about a hundred pounds. 
Diogenes was sold by pirates, who captured the vessel he was 
sailing in ; and refusing to be ransomed, he passed the rest of his 
life in slavery, but as the instructor of his master's children. 

The whole people were divided into ten tribes (phylce), 
Clisthenes having changed the ancient division of four into ten. 
Each of the four ancient tribes was divided into three vestries or 
phratrice (resembling the Roman curice), and each phr atria into 
thirty families (genea). The ten tribes, which were local, were 
made up of demi. There was a division of each of them into three 
parts, called Trityes. These divisions seem to have been chiefly 
subservient to the sacrifices and other religious solemnities, like 
the Roman division of gentes. There was another division into dis- 

* Mr. Hume's arguments have been refuted by other writers. See particularly 
Clinton's Fasti Helknici ; and he may have been misled by the supposition that the pas- 
sage in Athenseus refers to the proportion of slaves fit to bear arms. 

■f Xen., De Rep. Ath., cap. i. 

p 2 



212 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS. [CH. XVI. 

tricts or villages called demi; and tins had a reference to the en- 
rolment of the citizens ; for no one could claim his civil rights 
unless he belonged to a demus and a phyla (a village and tribe). 
There were officers at the head of each division and subdivision : 
over the tribes there was a phylobasileus ; over the vestry a 
phratriarcha ; over the village a demarchus. This division was 
also subservient to the military system, the tribes raising each its 
quota of men, and commanded by the phylarchus, and those of 
the subdivisions, demi, under the several demarchi. A classifi- 
cation of another kind had, however, been made by Solon. He 
not only retained but extended the aristocratic principle of the 
older government ; but he substituted an aristocracy of wealth 
for the old one of birth. He divided the citizens into three 
classes according to their income, as they had an income of five 
hundred, three hundred, or two hundred bushels of grain. From 
these classes alone could magistrates and senators be chosen : all 
the inferior orders formed a class by themselves, excluded from 
political office, but allowed to act as a kind of jurymen, in assist- 
ing the magistrates at the trial of causes, and allowed also to sit 
and vote in the assembly of the people (ecclesia). Aristides 
abolished all distinction between the classes, making every one 
eligible to all offices.* 

In that assembly (ecclesia) the whole legislative as well as ad- 
ministrative power was lodged, subject only to the powers of the 
archons as executive and judicial officers chosen annually by the 
assembly. Peace and war, alliances, taxes, expenditure, legis- 
lation, were all intrusted to the same body, which likewise 
chose all the superior magistrates, the inferior ones being selected 
by lot. To the assembly, also, were all magistrates responsible 
for their official conduct ; liable to be tried before it by impeach- 

* G. Posteliis, De Rep. Ath., c. 21. This treatise gives a distinct and concise sum- 
mary of the magistracies, but it is written with a political bias, at least with frequent 
reference to Venice. — J. Meurs., Solon, cap. 14 — Car. Sigon., De Rep. Ath., ii. 2 — 
J. Meurs., Attic. Led., v., 20. — In some writers there is a reference to J. Pollux 
on the Census of Solon ; and there must be an error, possibly in the editions (codices), 
as great as any of those corrected by J. Meursius in his various most learned treatises. 
It is said that the first class paid a talent in taxes, the second half a talent ; yet the 
whole income of the first was five hundred bushels, and of the second three hundred, 
which at five drachms a bushel (the price cited in various places) would make the 
whole income of the one class eighty-four, and of the other fifty pounds, out of which 
they were to pay nearly two hundred and a hundred pounds respectively. This subject 
is elaborately examined in Beckh's Public Economy of Athens, book iv., sect. 5. 



CH. XVI.] GENERAL ASSEMBLY. 213 

ment, and to be punished by its sentence. This assembly met 
four times in every prytaneia of thirty-five days, or about once 
every nine days ; but it was called together on any occasion that 
required its interposition, either by the senate or by the chief 
archon, or by the military commanders with the senate's permis- 
sion. The checks upon its power were originally considerable ; 
and some of them continued at all times, though some had ceased 
to operate. The president (the epistata, or chief of the proedri) 
was always a member of the senate, and it was he who generally 
brought the business forward. No resolution could be taken by 
it unless the senate had previously sanctioned it by its vote. A 
measure adopted by the senate was valid and binding for one year, 
whether the assembly confirmed it or not ; but no decree of the 
assembly could bind till the senate confirmed. But as the power 
of the people increased, even though the senate, having so much 
to hope or fear at their hands in the amount and distribution of 
magistracies, became extremely subservient to the assembly, yet 
the latter, not content with their influence, by degrees assumed 
the direct power, not only of rejecting the senate's propositions, a 
power which they always possessed, but of making decrees and 
laws to which no previous sanction of the senate had been given. 
To sit and vote in the assembly required no qualification, except 
being twenty years of age and a native Athenian ; but whoever 
was degraded by any infamous crime was incapacitated from at- 
tending; and it was a capital offence for a foreigner to be present. 
The ordinary meetings were thinly attended, and it was often ne- 
cessary to send officers around for the purpose of compelling 
those in the street to come in under pain of being fined. The 
strict rule required six thousand to be present when personal 
laws, as decrees of banishment or naturalisation, were made ; but 
Thucydides tells us that, for many years of the war, so many 
citizens had been abroad on service or on business, that it had 
never been found possible to assemble five thousand. The ex- 
pedient of giving pay to such as attended was latterly resorted to ; 
and four pence a day was found sufficient to attract the poorer 
classes. On great emergencies all the citizens, that is, all the 
people of Attica as well as the townsfolk, were summoned.* It 
was some check upon their proceedings that the old were allowed 
to speak first, and for some ages no one under fifty could begin a 
* Thucyd., vii. 72. 



214 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS. [CH. XVI . 

debate. It was a more effectual practical restraint that, though 
every one bad a right to speak, hardly any one ever thought of 
it but the appointed orators of the state. But the proceedings 
were generally as tumultuous and as noisy as might be expected 
in these circumstances.* 

The Senate was probably at first the council of the king, 
and then of the archon ; but when that office became annual, the 
senate's authority must have greatly increased. Solon appears 
only to have increased its numbers, and made its power more 
solid. The chief prerogatives of the government being after- 
wards transferred to the popular body, the senate had much less 
influence than before ; but it always retained considerable weight 
in the administration. Solon had required that every resolu- 
tion of the popular assembly should first be sanctioned by a 
decree of the senate ; but this afterwards ceased to be the law. 
Yet the ordinary course of proceeding was that both should con- 
cur, and it was held to be a principle of the constitution that the 
senate's decrees had, without any confirmation by the popular 
assembly, the force of law for a year. Certain questions seem to 
have been reckoned its peculiar province, and those of great im- 
portance, as peace and war, the raising of money for the public 
service, the care of the navy, and of all matters concerning the 
religion of the state. But it entertained apparently all questions 
of a public nature. Its jurisdiction as a court was exceedingly 
confined. If any case of a pressing nature arose, not admitting 
delay, the senate considered it, and either sent it to be tried by 
the ordinary tribunals, or inflicted a fine, in imposing which it 
could not exceed five hundred drachmae (about 15/.). f It had 
the power of expelling its own members, as w T ell as of deciding 
upon their qualifications when returned. 

The numbers of Solon's senate were four hundred ; Clisthe- 
nes raised them to five hundred ; and they were chosen by lot from 
all the tribes. Each tribe returned fifty J, and fifty more as sub- 
stitutes, § to take the places of those who might die, or be found 
disqualified on the scrutiny. On being so returned each person 
underwent a scrutiny (docimasia) as to his character and life, and 
he might afterwards be impeached before the senate itself for any- 

* U. Emmius, Vet. Grcvc. {Rep. Ath.) — Car. Sigon., De Rep. Ath., ii. 4. 
f Demosthenes expressly states this to be the limit of its judicial power. 



CH. XVI.] PRYTANES. 215 

thing tending to disqualify him,, as we see in some of the orations 
that still remain.* The five hundred being chosen were divided 
into bodies or sections of fifty each, who presided in their turn, 
each of the first four sections for thirty days, each of the other six 
for thirty-five. The presiding section was termed the pry tanes ; 
and there is some controversy as to the manner in which the pre- 
siding officers of the sections were chosen. One opinion seems to 
be, that each section divided itself into five bodies of ten each, and 
that each of the first seven of each ten was the chief, or epistata, 
in his turn presiding one day in the senate, while the other three 
of each ten were left out altogether. — Another opinion is, that 
thirty-five or thirty- six of the prytanean section were, each in his 
turn, epistatae of the prytanes, and consequently presided one day 
in the senate, while the epistata chose by lot one from each of 
the other nine sections, not being prytanes, and these nine were 
the proedvi, who presided at the general assemblies of the people. — 
All accounts agree in this, that no one presided above a day in his 
turn, and that all the selections were made by lot. The president of 
the senate, of whose authority the jealousy was thus great, generally 
opened the business for their consideration ; and he kept the great 
seal of the state as well as the key of the citadel and treasury. 
The prytanes formed a kind of college during their month, and 
lived at the public expense in a place called the tholus, close to 
the senate-house, entertaining there the public guests and any citi- 
zens who received that high honour for their services. It was the 
duty of the prytanes to receive all proposals of a political nature 
from every quarter, to reduce them to writing if deserving atten- 
tion, and to lay them before the senate. They prepared the busi- 
ness generally for that body, and their president (epistata) opened 
it to the meeting. Any proposition of a legislative kind, made in 
the senate, was referred to them. Some have supposed that the 
scrutiny into the conduct of magistrates was performed by them ; f 
this seems doubtful ; but certainly they are represented as exer- 
cising great authority in the administration of public affairs from 

* Lysias, In Philonem — passim. 

f J. Laurent. De Rebuspub., cap. i. An account sometimes given of the matter is 
this : — The scrutiny into the conduct of magistrates was conducted by the ivQwoi and 
Xoyia-Tai, officers appointed for that special purpose ; and if there was ground for a 
charge of malversation, the Xoynrrxi brought the case before an ordinary court of justice, 
in which they presided on those occasions, and the iv&vvoi seem to have acted as public 
prosecutors. 



21 G GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS. [oil. XVI. 

their weight in the senate. The daily pay of a senator was double 
thai of a person attending the assembly, about eightpence ster- 
ling. 

The voting was generally by the bean, or ballot in later times. 
Originally it was, as in the assembly, by holding up the hands.* 
The ancient authorities are full of allusions to the ballot, of which 
two are remarkable. Demosthenes says that the law required, 
when a foreigner was to have the rights of citizen conferred on 
him, that the voting should be not only by the bean, but so secretly, 
before strangers were admitted (that is, foreigners), that every one 
might be entirely master of himself, and examine in his own mind 
the merits of the party, f ^Eschines says that the senators had 
excluded Timarchus, voting by the leaf, that is with the names 
written down, but retained him afterwards voting by the bean ; for 
which the people punished them by withholding the olive crown, J 
the reward given to senators on quitting their office. 

It is here obvious to remark, that if the choice of the senate 
and of all those who presided in it, as well as in the assembly, 
were really made by lot, as was professed, there could have been 
no security whatever for the selection of fit persons. The scrutiny 
conld not have been at all effectual for this purpose if it be true, 
as is represented, that only an equal number of supernumeraries 
(ettiXocxovtss) were returned. For how is it conceivable that out 
of twenty thousand individuals, the great, majority of whom were of 
the lower description, the lot should fall upon only five hundred 
unfit persons in the one thousand returned? The probability cer- 
tainly is, that seven hundred or eight hundred out of the one 
thousand should be unfit for the office. Possibly the inferior classes, 

* Car. Sigon., De Rep. Ath., ii., 3— G. Postelli, Rep. Ath., c. 7— U. Emmius, 
Vet. Gr. (Rep. Ath.)— Thuc, viii., c. 69. Plutarch (Fit. Publicolcs) says that the 
senate existed before Solon, but he doubted its numbers. 

f Kugios cvv avTo; uvrov ixcco-tos ffwxrtTu.i Tgo; ccvrov ovnva. fjuiXXa, &c. — In Neeer. ap. 
•Reiske, Cr. Gr., ii., 1375. He speaks of it as if the common voting by bean was not 
a complete ballot — ^yitp^oju-zvoi and »^y/3B>jy ^tpi'^o/jbivoi are here as elsewhere apparently 
distinguished. The main difficulty of the passage, however, is in the yippee, avocwitv, 
which some have read as if it were that screens were raised to protect the voters from 
observation, and others as if the only reference were to the booths being taken away 
before strangers were admitted, while Wolfiua and others read it yiga, (qu. yioaTct ?), 
i. e., taking up (avcugut) the freedom, or honour conferred. Vet it sterns not very sen- 
sible to state that before the vote conferred the freedom, the freedom could not be 
taken up. 

X JEsch., In Tim. The unpopular course was clearly the one they took when 
voting more or less secretly. — Reiske, Or. Gr., iii. 129. 



CH. XVI.] AREOPAGUS. 217 

though possessing the right, did not enroll themselves so as to be 
chosen to the senate, and were satisfied with being so enrolled as 
to have a right to attend the assembly. We can else with diffi- 
culty understand how any body could be thus formed resembling 
a senate in its character and functions.* 

The Areopagus was a body of a very different construction, and 
it must have exercised a great influence over the proceedings of 
the assembly, if it had not a direct control. It is a remark of 
Plutarch that Solon, by these two councils, the Senate and Areo- 
pagus, made the commonwealth fast as by two anchors, in the 
popular tempests. He certainly did not for the first time erect 
the Areopagus, but he greatly extended its jurisdiction; and from 
other passages of the same writer it is clear enough that he only 
referred to the changes made by Solon in both these bodies. f 
Before his time the Areopagus had only a high criminal juris- 
diction; he gave it a general censorial power, enabling it to 
punish by censures and exposure, and also by penalties, all trans- 
gressions against the rules of- morality and all infractions of the 
customs of the country. This important office it continued to 
discharge for about a century, when Pericles abolished it, and 
confined the jurisdiction to criminal matters and a general super- 
intendence of the other tribunals, from all of which there lay an 
appeal to the Areopagus. It appears also, in sending causes to 
be tried by them, to have had a jurisdiction in the first instance. 
From its ancient respectability, from the high powers which it still 
possessed, and from the higher which for many years it had exer- 
cised, with universal approbation for its rigid justice and its hu- 
mane spirit, this body retained a great weight in the community; 

* Xenophon's opinion of the Athenians and their government was sufficiently low. 
" These folks," said he, " can easily distinguish good citizens from bad, and they like 
such as serve their purpose, how worthless soever they may be, hating public benefac- 
tors, as deeming that merit is rather hurtful than profitable with the multitude. Not 
that all this is to be blamed in the people themselves ; every one has a right to pursue 
his own interest. But when you see any one not of the people prefer to live in a state 
subject to popular dominion rather than in one where an oligarchy is established, you 
may rely on it he does so from no good motive, but being determined to act amiss, he 
thinks he can better escape detection under a democracy than an oligarchy." — De Rep. 
Ath., cap. ii. 

f We may probably so understand also the passage in Cic. De Off., lib. i., in which 
he compares Solon's institution of the Areopagus to Themistocles' victory at Salamis. 
Demosthenes treats the origin of the body as lost in fabulous antiquity, and describes it 
as having tried Mars for the murder of Halcrothus, on the complaint of Neptune. (In 
Arisloc.) J. Meursius clearly shows that the Areopagus existed before Solon. (Areop., 
cap. iii.) 



218 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS. [CH. XVI. 

it occasionally interposed its authority on questions of a political 
nature, even after the time of Pericles. It was the highest and most 
venerable of all the tribunals. Even foreign states have been known 
to appeal to it, and refer their disputes to its arbitration. But 
what especially made its power and its proceedings of importance 
was the independence which alone, of all the constituted autho- 
rities, it appears to have enjoyed. It was the only body not im- 
mediately dependent upon the people; and this makes it the more 
to be lamented that several particulars in its structure and opera- 
tions have been left unexplained by ancient writers. 

The members were appointed for life, all the other magistrates 
being of annual nomination. They were chosen from those who 
had been archons, and who, on quitting office, could undergo a 
severe scrutiny, both as to their accounts, as to their whole conduct 
in the magistracy, and also as to their whole previous life. They 
were required to be well born, to have received a good education, 
and to have distinguished themselves by their public services. 
They must also have been of mature age : what that age was we 
are not told ; nor is it anywhere asserted that there was any fixed 
period assigned by law ; neither does it clearly appear before whom 
the scrutiny was made, in whom the decision was vested, or that 
there was an appeal from it if unfavourable. The logistce are re- 
presented as examining the ex-archon; but so they examined 
every one retiring from office. The logista3 were ten persons of 
great knowledge and respectability, chosen yearly, one from each 
tribe, before whom every magistrate was bound to appear, and ren- 
der an account of his public conduct, within thirty days after the 
expiration of his office. In all probability the inquiry was origi- 
nally confined to matters of account; but it seems clear that after- 
wards a more general investigation was entered into. iEschines 
distinctly shows that those who had no public money passing 
through their hands, nay, those who, so far from being public ac- 
countants, were, like the trier archce, persons chosen to undertake an 
expense for the public, were subject to this revision ; and he asserts 
that the members of the Areopagus itself (who could have 'no * 
handling of money) were liable to be examined by these logistae.f 

* iEsch. In Ctes. — Dobson, viii., 173. When he adds that the Areopagus performs 
its high functions subject to the votes of the Heliastae (xvgixv ayu ruv piyurruv vno ty,v 
vfAiri^uv ^yfov,) he means that the members might be impeached at the instance of the 
logistae. 

f There either were other magistrates of a similar kind called cuthynce, or this is 
another name for the logisfa?. The difference between the two is mentioned by some 



CH. XVI.] AREOPAGUS — SCRUTINY. 219 

The logistse had no power of passing a sentence ; they could only 
acquit or send to trial those whom they examined ; but their ac- 
quittal was not final ; the party might afterwards be brought before 
the helisea and condemned. The examination or scrutiny of the 
ex-archons, therefore, was a necessary proceeding, whether they 
were candidates for the Areopagus or not. The probability is 
that the Areopagus itself decided, taking into consideration, no 
doubt, the report of the logistse ; but it is generally agreed that 
the claim of the ex-archon to his place was irresistible if he pos- 
sessed the qualifications required. As they had enjoyed the popu- 
lar favour the year before when chosen archons, the Areopagus 
was not likely to reject them if their merits were manifest.* 

The numbers of the Areopagus were necessarily uncertain ; but 
it is singular that the ancient writers afford us no means of ascer- 
taining how many they generally were. Sometimes they are said 
to have been thirty, at another time fifty-one ; but if, as is gene- 
rally supposed, Socrates was tried before them, the number who 
concurred in his sentence was above three hundred and sixty; and 
we are also told that before the eighty, who changed their opinion, 
went over between the trial and the sentence, the majority was 
only three. This would suppose a very numerous body, more nu- 
merous than the senate. Now nothing can be less likely than so 
numerous a body retaining at all times the extreme veneration in 
which they were held by a people as fickle as critical ; not to 

and denied by others. If they were different, probably the one class was confined to 
examining the accounts. 

* In the second oration against Aristogiton, we find it distinctly stated that the 
thesmothetes were excluded from the Areopagus by the decree of the people — that is, 
the assembly. The argument is that they, when excluded, quietly submit — run bfjt.irtga.ts 
yvufficri ; and the charge against Aristogiton which the orator was mainly bringing was 
his insolence to the people, and setting himself above their authority — v<z-zg vpu? (pguvuv 
(In Arist. ii. 2, 3). The two orations against Aristogiton are indeed by many denied 
to be genuine, especially the second, though Longinus and Pliny seem to have had no 
doubt about it ; but whether they were A's or Hyperides's can make little difference as 
to their authority on the present question. The orations were plainly made in the 
assembly, and not in either the senate or Areopagus. It is singular that J. Meursius 
(Areop. cap. v.), in showing the error of those who suppose the three chief archons to 
have been excluded from the Areopagus, and only the six thesmothetes admitted, has 
overlooked the strongest proof of all, the argument of Lysias (In Evandrum), who con- 
tends that the senate should not allow Evander to be second archon (or King of 
the Sacrifices), because, though that office is only annual, it gives the holder a right to 
the Areopagus, which is for life. He even seems to say that this admission would be a 
matter of course, probably conceiving this previous scrutiny, and its favourable result, 
to be taken as binding at the end of Evander's year of office. 



220 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS. [cH. XVI. 

mention the impossibility of so large a number resulting from the 
annual election of a very few persons, probably advanced in life. 
Either then there must be some error in the texts, or Socrates must 
have been condemned by another tribunal, probably, as we shall 
presently see, the heliastae. 

The meetings of the Areopagus were held on the hill dedi- 
cated to Mars, from whence their name * was derived. One or 
more of the archons presided, and propounded the business at 
each sitting. The sittings were in the night ; no advocate or 
party in addressing it was permitted to declaim or use any rhe- 
torical artifice. The decisions were given by ballot. The person 
tried could not be sentenced the same day; and if he chose to fly, 
though on his trial for a capital offence, as murder or treason, 
neither the prosecutor, nor any magistrate, nor even the court itself, 
could prevent his escape. Sentence of outlawry and forfeiture 
was alone given against him. 

Some have maintained, and J. Meursius among the number, 
that an appeal lay from the Areopagus to the assembly, as it cer- 
tainly lay by Solon's laws from all other tribunals ; and some 
passages have been adduced to prove this. But there seems little 
probability that it was so, and the passages are not unequivocal 
and decisive. Its high functions would seem to preclude this 
appeal ; and learned men have held that the sentence being final, 
was one reason for St. Paul being dragged before it. But the 
true reason was, because at that period the Areopagus had the 
jurisdiction respecting the introduction of foreign gods. It is said 
that there are proofs of the decisions pronounced by it being reversed 
in the assembly, or rather by the Heliastae. When these cases, 
however, are examined, it seems doubtful whether there had really 
been a judgment of the Areopagus, or only a report putting the 
party on his trial. This is at least certain, that in some cases it 
was armed with authority to pronounce a final sentence ; that in 
others it appears only to have begun the prosecution ; while in 
others it could review the decision of the Helisea, and put a person 
on his trial a second time who had been acquitted. But even 
those who maintain that an appeal lay, admit that when the 
Areopagus did pronounce a sentence, there was hardly an instance 
of its giving dissatisfaction ; and the passages are clear which 

* Aguos *a.yo?, Mars's hill, as it is sometimes translated, e.g. in the New Testament 
relating to St. Paul's trial before this Court {Acts, xix.) 



CH. XVI.] HELI^EA. 221 

represent that even the parties against whom the decision was 
given always acquiesced. Some say * that convicts always con- 
fessed they were rightly sentenced. Demosthenes himself, who 
did not go so far, yet says f that there never was an instance 
either of a prosecutor who had failed, or an accused person who 
had been condemned, being able to show that the Areopagus had 
decided erroneously. Practically speaking, then, their decisions 
may be considered as having been final. | It appears that in 
some cases the Areopagus itself referred matters to the other tri- 
bunals, probably the Helisea, notwithstanding that they had final 
jurisdiction respecting them.§ How great was the influence of the 
Areopagus with the people appears from many instances. On 
one occasion, when a vote of the assembly had passed over 
Phocion, always unpopular with the multitude, and given the com- 
mand of an expedition to their favourite Charidemus, the Areopa- 
gus went among them, and by their authority obtained a reversal 
of the ill-considered decision, and the appointment of Phocion. || 

Next to the Areopagus in importance was the court of the 
Helisea, or the Heliastse, which does not seem to have been a court 
of ordinary jurisdiction in criminal cases, but to have had special 
jurisdiction in these as it ordinarily had in civil cases, and to have 
had all important cases respecting the state and political offences 
brought before it, as part, of its special and extraordinary jurisdic- 
tion. There seems good reason to think, notwithstanding the 

* Lye, In Leoc. 

f Dem., In Aristoc. 

% Dinarchus in Aristogiton's case treats his complaint of the Areopagus as something 
quite extravagant, and as more strange than all the rest of his conduct ; but it is by- 
no means clear that it was an appeal — haSixo%o/ub$vos mv (ZouXw <rt^t uXnkta;. (Reiske, 
Cr. Gr., Din. 77.) The whole oration is an attack on the party for strange and un- 
heard-of conduct. The proceeding in which Demosthenes was tried and banished 
seems to have been only a report of the Areopagus, by whose award he had rashly said he 
should be bound : it was given unanimously against him, and sent the case apparently to 
be tried before the Heliaea. Dinarchus calls the proceeding in the Areopagus u<z-ahi%i$ . 
(Reiske, Cr. Gr., Din. 3.) He speaks of a decree of the assembly on a former occasion, 
making the decision of the Areopagus final (ib. 58). From another passage it seems even 
possible to suppose that the Areopagus decided on the question of guilty or not guilty, 
and that the case was then sent before the other tribunal to fix the punishment (ib. 75). 
It is singular that Plutarch (Fit. Dem.') only mentions the proceeding in the Areopagus, 
and neither in the life of Demosthenes nor of Dinarchus (Fit. x. orat., if that work be 
his, which seems more than doubtful) does he make any mention of the proceeding 
before the Heliastse, which condemned and banished Demosthenes. 
§ ^Eschines, In Tim. 

|| J. Meurs., Solon. — Id., Areopagus. — Car. Sigon., De Rep. Ath., ii., 5. — G. Pos- 
telli, c. iv. — U. Emmius, Vet. Grcec, De Rep. Ath. 



222 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — ATHENS. [CH. XVI. 

prevailing opinion of antiquaries in favour of the Areopagus, that 
the Helirca sentenced Socrates; and the reference made to his 
trial by iEsehines, when he says, "the people whom he is address- 
ing put Socrates to death," may very reasonably be accounted for 
by the circumstance of the same people forming also the court of 
the Heliasta?. These were chosen by lot, and for the particular 
occasion, as it appears ; the archon, to whom complaint had been 
preferred, and sometimes the Areopagus, directing a trial before 
them. The number varied according to the nature and import- 
ance of the cause ; it seems never to have been less than 500 ; 
sometimes 1000 or 1001, and sometimes as many as 1500. The 
charge against Demosthenes was tried before that number, as 
Dinarchus expressly states in his oration addressed to them, that 
they were so numerous ; * and if there be no error in the text, 
Andocides, referring to his father's prosecution of Speusippus, 
says there were 6000 present on that occasion.t It manifestly 
was only another, and a somewhat less promiscuous assembly of 
the people than the ecclesia. It was less promiscuous, because 
the age of thirty was required, and the numbers were taken apart 
from all the rest, though taken by lot. The number was fixed 
on each occasion by the archon. It was on account of its great 
number, and the magnitude of the causes which came before it, 
reckoned the highest court ; but as it only met rarely, and as the 
Areopagus was a permanent tribunal, beside its weight on politi- 
cal matters, its superior importance is manifest. A solemn oath 
was taken by all the judges, or rather jurors, of the Helisea, bind- 
ing them not only to judge according to the laws and the evidence, 
but also to maintain the established government, to resist all 
attempts at an extinction of debts, a division of real estates, the 
establishment of a tyranny or an oligarchy, or the undue election 
of magistrates ; so that though assembled for the trial of a cause, 
they appear to have interfered, at least as incidental to the subject 
. matttr of their jurisdiction, with many of the most important 
branches, both legislative and executive, of the administration. 
Thus they were evidently called upon to repeal illegal decrees, 
and even to abrogate laws that had been made irregularly and 
unconstitutionally ; because when any one was tried before them 

* Reiske, Cr. Gr. iv., Din. 72. 

| lb. iv., And. 9. He speaks of it as a court of 6000. Kai viyvvi7tt.ro iv tZ,a.xtffxi\ioi; 

A@nva.iuv Ktti fjbiriXa.(-)i ^ixasrav to<toutuv 200. 



CH. XVI.] EPHETJE. 223 

for having caused such a law to be passed, its repeal, as well as 
his punishment, was sought by the articles of the charge. In this 
respect they appear to have had a jurisdiction somewhat resem- 
bling that of the Federal constitutional court in the United States 
of America. There is every reason to suppose that most of the 
great political causes of which we have any account were tried 
before this tribunal. 

The Ephetce were, next to the Areopagus, the most ancient of 
the judges, being, in the time of the kings, fifty Athenians and 
fifty Argives, who tried all crimes of homicide. In Draco's time 
they were reduced to fifty-one (to avoid the chance of equal divi- 
sion), and the Argives no longer formed part of the court. After- 
wards each of the ten tribes chose five persons of the age of fifty at 
least, and of unblemished reputation ; another was added by lot. 
These judges formed four courts, called the Prytaneum, Phrea- 
trium, Delphium, and Palladium, which tried the different kinds 
of homicide ; the Prytanes, for example, that which was occa- 
sioned by animals, or by inanimate objects. Solon is supposed 
to have given extended powers to the Areopagus as a counter- 
balance to the influence of the ephetse. Some have confounded 
this tribunal with the senate, misled by the Prytaneum, which 
formed one of its divisions.* But the members, as well as its 
functions, were totally different. These Prytanes however, that is, 
the tenth part of the senate in rotation, beside presiding by their 
epistatse and proedri over the senate and the assembly, exercised, 
as we have seen, great powers, but not apparently any judicial 
functions. 

* J. Stephanus, De Jurisd. Vet. Greec, cap. iv. In cap. iii. the learned author treats 
the court of the Prytanes as the senate, and there is no inaccuracy in so doing, the senate 
having civil jurisdiction. But in cap. iv. he gives the same court jurisdiction as to 
homicide by animals and inanimate objects, which belonged to the branch of the 51 
under the archon called king. He supposes Socrates to have been tried in the Pry- 
tanes or senate. 



224 [ch. xvn. 



CHAPTER XVII. 

GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — ATHENS. 

(Continued.) 



Other checks beside the Areopagus — State and Public Orators — Payment of Func- 
tionaries — Rules as to Alterations of the Law — Nomothetes — Syndics — Direct Re- 
peal required — Impeachment for illegal Legislation— Quorum — Prohibition of Re- 
peal—Power of Adjournment — Variety of Bodies — Appeal, and reconsideration — 
Ostracism — General feeling against these — Orators; their influences — Advocates 
and Professional Orators — Legislative and Judicial Functions combined — Corrup- 
tion of Statesmen — Demosthenes — Whigs in Charles II.'s reign — Demades — Cor- 
ruption, faction, and fickleness of the People — Turbulence of Assemblies — Radical 
vices of the System — Advantages derived from the System. 

Such were the constituted authorities of the Athenian system, 
resolving themselves all, more or less, immediately into the bulk 
of the people ; and we are now to consider in what manner any 
control or check was provided, beside the Areopagus, 1o render 
the working of the machine regular, and keep it subject to any 
fixed law, or any influence other than popular caprice. 

1. The appointment of public orators maybe deemed some 
kind of check upon the popular proceedings, though it perhaps 
rather evinces the great sense which there was of some check 
being required, than the efficiency of the expedient resorted to. 
Ten orators were chosen (latterly at least, by lot), who both in 
the senate and the assembly were to debate for the people, repre- 
senting their interests, as it were ; and they were paid a small 
sum each time they spoke.* They appear to have undergone a 
scrutiny before being allowed to act as orators, probably before 

* It was one drachma, or eightpence. Nothing is more puzzling than the small 
sums which appear to have been received as adequate payment for public sen-ices, and 
to have been eagerly sought after. Three oboli (four pence) a day for attending the 
assembly; for the senate, six oboli : nay, only the same for the Areopagus itself when 
sitting judicially. 



CH. XVII.] RESTRAINTS ON CHANGES IN THE LAW. 225 

they were drawn by lot ; and any immoral conduct, or political or 
other offence, or any misbehaviour in war, precluded them from 
being chosen. They were also required to be natives, born of 
Athenian parents, to have one or more legitimate children, and to 
possess property in Attica. The same character and qualification, 
ascertained by the same scrutiny, was required of all others who 
would address the assembly, as well as of the Public Orators ; and 
whoever succeeded in concealing any part of his former life from 
the court which examined him previous to his admission, was 
liable to be punished, as well as disqualified from acting in future, 
upon the imposition being discovered. In practice, hardly any one 
but the Ten Public Orators ever addressed either the senate or 
assembly; and this, as well as what has been stated respecting the 
choice of the senators, makes it very difficult to conceive that the 
lot really decided upon all these elections. Practically there may 
have been some arrangement or understanding by which the names 
of comparatively few of those eligible were placed in the urns. 

2. The strict rules, however, respecting alterations of the law 
were a much more effectual check upon the wild democracy of 
the Athenian constitution. Fortunately a tolerably exact account 
of this is given in the orations which remain of Demosthenes and 
Andocides ; an account which, if it is far from explaining every 
particular of the legislative process, yet shows clearly that there 
were delays interposed, and notices required to be given, which 
afforded an opportunity for reflection to the people themselves, for 
the exertion of such influence over them as the Areopagus pos- 
sessed, and for the operation generally of the authority that 
always resides in the Natural Aristocracy of the community. The 
constancy with which the Athenians adhered to these rules rather 
than their original adoption, which was probably owing to oligar- 
chical influence, is a proof how conscious they were of their own 
unfitness to be trusted with the supreme power, of the little re- 
liance which they had upon themselves. 

The three first assemblies each year were devoted to the consi- 
deration of new laws ; but the two first of the three could only 
consider of such as were not repugnant to any law already exist- 
ing. The proposal of a repeal or other law inconsistent with the 
old was then received, but it was rigorously exacted that no such 
law should be propounded without a previous repeal of the old. 
As soon as the proposition was made the senate appointed a num- 
PART II. Q 



226 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — ATHENS. [CH. XVII . 

ber of persons called Nomothetes, or law-makers (some think 
fifty*), not by lot, but by selection, to digest and reduce it to 
writing. In that form it was laid before the Piytanes, who were 
to make it public by immediately affixing it to a portico in a fre- 
quented part of the city, called the Eponymi, or Statues of the 
Ten Heroes. It was required to be thus placarded daily until 
the assembly again took it into consideration. Other nomothetes, 
said to have been five hundred, and chosen by the districts who 
returned the senate \ (the demi), then examined it, as did the 
senate itself. All the nomothetes must have served as Heliastae, 
and taken the solemn oath of these judges. Then five persons 
were chosen, but not by lot, called Syndics, whose special duty it 
was to defend the old law, and of consequence to resist the intro- 
duction of the new. Finally the assembly, on the full discussion 
of the question, determined upon adopting or rejecting the propo- 
sition. 

3. But another important restraint was imposed by positive 
law, and it operated at all times, and actively, though it was per- 
verted, like everything else in that turbulent commonwealth, to 
the purposes of faction. It was criminal to bring forward any 
decree or any legislative measure w T hich was contrary to the 
existing law : the first step to be taken was propounding a direct 
repeal. This of itself was a great security; inasmuch as men 
will often be averse openly and at once to abrogate an old law, or 
destroy an ancient institution, who would have little scruple about 
suffering it gradually to be undermined or indirectly assailed, and 
frittered away, as it were, by piecemeal. But suppose a person pro- 
pounded a total repeal of the old law, he was compelled to substitute 
another in its place ; and if this was not beneficial to the nation,^ 
he was liable to be prosecuted at any time within a year, although 

* Reiske supposes the word h to have been originally the cipher for fifty ( Or. Or. 
And. de Myster., iv., 40), and he translates it so accordingly. 

f There seems some reason for suspecting an error here, if not in the text, at least in 
the interpretation that has been given to it. Andocides says 500 nomothetes, ovg it 
Inform liXovro (Reiske, Cr. Gr., iv. 40) ; and adds that they, meaning the nomothetes, 
were sworn before they proceeded. Demosthenes says they took the oath of the he- 
liastae (In Tim.), but he says nothing of their appointment. If the demi, as Reiske 
supposes (viii., 336), actually elected the nomothetes, it is the only instance known of 
their making any choice; ^n/jcorat would describe the people, indeed, the assembly as 
well as the demi. 

% Emrrihtov rso !inp.v. (Dem. In Timoc.) The proper meaning is fitted — well 
adapted. But in which way soever we translate the word, the argument must remain 
the same. 



CH. XVII.] IMPEACHMENT OF ILLEGALITY. 227 

the people and the senate should have sanctioned his proposition 
and passed the law — nay, although the same should have been 
acted upon. If his proposition, being adopted, had proved ever 
so beneficial, he was liable to prosecution unless he had brought 
it forward and carried it according to the strict forms of legisla- 
tive procedure, having regard, among others, to the important rule 
which required direct repeal, and prohibited any indirect breaking 
in upon the existing law. Thus the responsibility under which 
the supreme power, the people and the senate, could not be placed, 
was cast upon each member of the community who chose to put 
that irresponsible power in motion. Every person, be he ever so 
insignificant, was entitled, on this condition, to make what pro- 
posals he pleased ; and no person, how powerful soever, was ex- 
empt from prosecution for his attempts to change the law, or to 
obtain decrees inconsistent with its principles. Nor was the con- 
currence of the state itself any guarantee of his safety. The same 
body which to-day joined in carrying his measure, might some 
months hence, nay some years hence (for it sufficed if the prose- 
cution were commenced within the year, the trial might be at any 
time*), join in working his ruin, and that without any original fault 
on his part or on theirs ; because all might have been formally done, 
and the event might still prove the change to be hurtful. It is no 
wonder that the orators and party chiefs at Athens stood in great 
dread of such a proceeding, and regarded with the most serious 
apprehension the responsibility which they thus incu rred in the 
discharge of their public duty, if you will, but certainly in the 
pursuit of their own ambitious objects. 

This species of prosecution or impeachment was termed ygxtyvi 
TTccqayo/xcoM f —charge or accusation of illegality ; and it was in 
constant use between the contending parties, or rival statesmen 

* The most elaborate prosecution of this kind, of which we have any knowledge, 
that of Ctesiphon for obtaining the decree crowning Demosthenes, was commenced 
indeed within the year, but argued and decided after seven or eight years had elapsed, 
and the most important events had entirely changed the face of things. 

f There appears to be some doubt whether this prosecution could be maintained 
against a person who had only attempted to carry an unlawful measure ; and if we were 
to take the passage in Andocides so often referred to as some have understood it, there 
appears a colour for the opinion that the attempt was sufficient. But the word (Zouktvuv, 
which is rendered senator by Reiske and others, seems to imply more. It is coupled 
with 'ru^ot.tiihaxTiv too '%ix,a.zryi£iu, and may therefore be taken to mean that Speusippus had 
by his counsels obtained a decree of the senate putting Andocides's father on his trial. 
Had it been senator, the expression would rather have been (ZovXiv<rn$ $av. 

Q 2 



228 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — ATHENS. [CH. XVII. 

and commanders, down to the time of the Thirty tyrants, who abo- 
lished it. The greatest orations of the two first orators of any 
age, Demosthenes and iEschines, were delivered upon trials of 
this description; and some others of Demosthenes, hardly less 
noble, were prepared by him upon similar occasions to be deli- 
vered by different parties, it being the practice at Athens for pri- 
vate accusers to deliver speeches prepared by professional orators, 
as well as to defend themselves when charged, in those instances 
in which advocates were not allowed. Some doubt hangs over 
the question which of the tribunals had cognizance of this charge. 
There seems no doubt whatever that the great case of Timocrates 
was tried before the Heliastse, and the probability is that the case 
of Aristocrates was also tried by them. There can be very little 
question that the case of Ctesiphon was disposed of by the same 
tribunal.* 

4. Some additional check was interposed by the rule which was 
laid down as to the numbers whose concurrence was required in 
the kind of proceeding most likely to be influenced by popular 
violence. It was a rule constantly in force that no law could be 
passed to affect any one person without affecting equally the 
whole people, unless 6000 persons were present at the least. Be- 
side the general law, many instances occur of this number being 
specially required by other laws, not indeed to join in the vote, 
but to vote in the question. Thus the admission of an alien to 
the rights of citizenship,t — the restoration of those citizens who 
had been disqualified by crimes or default — the remission of any 
debt I due to the public — are cases provided for by particular 
laws ; although they all appear to come under the description of 
personal laws or decrees, and might therefore have been sup- 
posed provided for by the general law. It is to be observed that 

* Demosthenes (In Timoc.) quotes a clause in the senator's oath, and then, to show 
that it does not bind those to whom the speech is addressed (vpas), he has the Heliast's 
oath read, in which the clause does not occur. This oration was made for Diodorus, the 
prosecutor of Timocrates, as the one against Aristocrates was made for Eaepicrates. The 
address is throughout in this to the Athenians, as in the two orations on the Crown, 
except in a single instance. But that is not decisive ; for the large judicatures were 
always addressed as the Athenians. There is one passage in each of the orations of 
Demosthenes and iEschines, which refers to judges, and to those standing round as 
contradistinguished from the judges, clearly showing that these speeches were not 
delivered in the general assembly. In all these cases, too, the oaths are referred to under 
which the persons addressed were acting. 

f Dem. In Neceeram. \ Id. I* Timoc. 



CH. XVII.] OTHER CHECKS. 229 

this rule only applied to the proceedings of the assembly : for the 
senate could act by the bare majority of its numbers ; and the 
tribunals, such as the Areopagus and heliaea, could proceed to 
sentence against individuals by the majority at meetings com- 
posed of comparatively few voters. 

5. Beside these restraints there were others much more feeble, 
because they were attempts, as it were, of the people to put them- 
selves under disabilities, and had little more effect than to show 
how much some control was desiderated. Upon a new law being 
made, it was not unusual to add a perpetual prohibition of any 
repeal or alteration. The funds for the army had been by Peri- 
cles diverted to give the people the power of attending theatrical 
exhibitions, in which they so much delighted. Eubulus, a dema- 
gogue, at the very time when the expenses of the war most re- 
quired this supply to be restored, had a law passed making it a 
capital offence so much as to propose it. — The exemptions from 
serving certain expensive offices had been carried to excess; and 
Leptines proposed a law not only recalling some of those already 
granted, but prohibiting, under pain of confiscation and infamy, 
any one to propose new exemptions in future ; and it is to be re- 
marked that, in the able and well-reasoned oration which Demos- 
thenes wrote for one of the movers of the repeal (the time for pro- 
secuting Leptines having elapsed), the absurdity of a law assum- 
ing to bind the legislature prospectively is not one of the grounds 
taken.* It is an observation of Mr. Hume, marked by his wonted 
sagacity, that such laws proved ". the universal sense which the 
people had of their own levity and inconstancy. "t 

6. There was a power vested in the presiding officer similar to 
that which we may remember to have found of such importance at 
Eome, of adjourning the meetings of the assembly upon any omen 
appearing to authorise it. The archons, too, appear to have pos- 
sessed this privilege ; certainly the prytanes and proedri; though 
it seems to have been much more rarely resorted to than at Rome. 

7. The referring so many important questions to bodies different 
from the assembly must be deemed a check upon its rashness and 
violence, even if those bodies were constituted in the same way 
with itself, which neither the Areopagus nor the Helisea were. The 

* Dem., 2nd Olynth., and In Lept. f Essays, Part ii., 10. 



230 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS. [CH. XVII. 

Heliaea came nearest to it in composition, being taken by lot, and 
without any permanent functions. But even if out of six or seven 
thousand persons five hundred are chosen by lot, the merely set- 
ting them apart, especially if they are to act under the sanction 
of an oath, is likely to make their conduct more cautious and deli- 
berative. We know how differently a very small number acts 
from the body out of which it is taken, in the instance of juries. 
To a certain degree the same kind of difference will be found to 
affect the proceedings of a much less select body like the Heliastee. 
The same observation applies to the senate. There can be little 
doubt that the prytanes, though chosen like the other 450, and 
their president, though also selected by lot, felt an individual 
responsibility which did not influence the senators at large. 

8. The uncertainty in which we are left regarding the right of 
appeal, and the course taken for obtaining the judgment of dif- 
ferent bodies on the same matter, prevents us from being able to 
trace distinctly the operation of probably the most effectual of all 
these checks. One thing is however clear : there was a tendency 
to have the proceedings of each judicature reviewed by some one 
or more other bodies, and an option given of going before one or 
other of courts of concurrent jurisdictions. In some instances it 
is believed that two decisions of the same body were necessary to 
give any sentence effect. It should indeed seem from the oration 
of Demosthenes against Timocrates, that hardly any resolution or 
judgment was final until it was executed, and that two successive 
determinations of the Senate and of the Assembly did not prevent 
the whole ground from being again gone over before the Heliasta?. 
If there lay no direct appeal from the Areopagus, there were few 
instances in which that body did not, either after or before pro- 
nouncing a final sentence, send the case to the Heliastae. We 
have the remarkable instance of Demosthenes being either tried 
for bribery as to the whole matter, or at any rate as to the punish- 
ment to be inflicted, before the latter tribunal, after a unanimous 
sentence, or at least a resolution against him, of the Areopagus. 
The converse of this case was that of Antiphon, stated in the 
oration upon the Crown. He had been arrested for treason and 
sent to take his trial in the Helisea, where by the arts of a party he 
was acquitted, and he left the city. The Areopagus had him 
seized again, and again put on his trial before the same courts, 






CH. XVII.] OSTKACISM. 231 

though probably not composed of the same members, when he 
was put to the torture, convicted, and executed.* There can be 
no doubt that such a course of proceeding exposed parties to great 
hardships, an acquittal being no protection; but it is equally 
manifest that a security was derived from it against rash and 
inconsiderate determinations. 

There was one kind of proceeding not peculiar to Athens, but 
more practised there than anywhere else, and which may be 
thought rather to operate in a contrary direction to those rules 
and principles now under consideration, giving a freer scope to 
the democratic power, rather than providing a restraint to it. It 
was an ancient custom, the origin of which is left in great uncer- 
tainty, that when any citizen had either from his wealth or his 
renown, and it might even be from the reputation justly acquired 
by his eminent services or his singular virtues, attained an ex- 
traordinary degree of weight and influence, he was liable to be 
removed for a length of time by banishment, in order to prevent 
his acquiring a power dangerous to the liberties of the people, and 
inconsistent with the democratic form of the government. This 
extraordinary proceeding was not of course regarded as a degra- 
dation ; it was even affected to be treated not as a punishment ; 
and it accordingly differed from ordinary or penal exile, because 
it was attended with no forfeiture, which always attended the 
other. In another respect it differed, that generally the place of 
banishment was assigned, although some have doubted this from 
the example of Themistocles, who, as a reward for such services 
as hardly any man had ever rendered to his country, was banished 
to Argos, and Thucydides nevertheless tells us that he went to all 
parts of the Peloponnesus. t It can hardly be supposed, how- 
ever, that a person so unjustly treated as to be naturally bent on 
revenge should be suffered to go wherever he pleased ; and we may 
therefore presume that the general rule was to assign the place 
of residence. The rules were very strict by which this proceeding 
was conducted. A day was appointed on which the people as- 
sembled in the public place or forum, where ten passages were 
prepared; by these all the tribes might go to the urns in which 
each person was to put his shell, or rather piece of earthenware 
in the shape of a shell, from whence the operation was termed 
ostracism. On this ware he was to write the name of the person 

* Bern., De Cor. f Thue., lib. i., c. 135. 



232 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS. [CH. XVII. 

whom he desired to banish. The nine archons attended, with 
the prytanes on the part of the senate, and they first of all counted 
the people present ; if there were fewer than 6000 there could 
be no sentence passed ; and there are three wholly inconsistent 
accounts given of this quorum : one representing the presence 
only of the fixed number to be necessary ; the second represent- 
ing the number of 6000 votes to be required, but a majority of 
these to be sufficient ; the third representing 6000 votes as neces- 
sary to sentence any person.* There is also an opinion adopted 
by men of great name on the authority of an ancient writer, that 
no person under sixty years of age could vote, but that there must 
be 6000 present of the legal age of twenty.f The time of banish- 
ment was ten years ; but sometimes a decree of the assembly 
shortened this period. Some of the greatest and most virtuous 
men in Greece, Themistocles, Cimon, A rist ides, suffered by os- 
tracism for the influence which their merits had acquired ; and 
it has been a general remark in all ages, that the excesses of 
popular violence never brought greater odium upon republican 
government than was cast upon it by this refinement of cruelty and 
injustice. The professed object was to give a security against the 
introduction of tyranny and the subversion of the popular consti- 
tution ; but it would not be easy to imagine a worse result of any 
tyranny or of any change in the popular constitution than the 
enormity of ostracism itself. This detestable custom was in use 
both at Argos, Melitus, and Messina ; and at Syracuse, where it 
was called petalism, from the names being written on leaves. In 
the three former places the Athenian term of ten years was 
adopted ; in Syracuse it was only five ; nor was it long tolerated 
there, even in this somewhat mitigated form. 

It is manifest that all the circumstances which we have been 
considering depended for their influence, indeed for their exist- 

* The account given by Plutarch {Vit. Arist.) seems, in one respect, very unintel- 
ligible. He says that different persons were proposed for ostracism, and that he whose 
name appeared on the greatest number of shells was banished. It is easy to see that 
when one party proposed to banish an adversary his friends would retaliate. But if 
the vote was taken as Plutarch describes, it would follow that one or other must be 
banished, and only one ; whereas the majority might be of opinion that both should be 
banished, or neither ; and in the event of more than two being denounced, the conse- 
quence would be still more absurd. 

f Car. Sigon., De Repub. Ath., ii., 4 ; and he quotes Plutus's Comment. Grcec. 
U. Emmius (Vet. Grcec.') and A. Thysis {Rep. Ath.) adopt the same account. J. 
Meursius (Att. Led. v., 18) gives all the other learning on the subject. 



CH. XVII.] GENERAL CONSERVATIVE FEELING. ' 233 

ence, upon the strong disposition of the community, and especially 
of the numerous and inferior class, to abide by ancient customs, 
and to make the deviating from them an exception of rare occur- 
rence. This principle was mixed up with religious feelings ; and 
it was carefully inculcated by almost every one who pretended 
to acquire any sway over the people. All reflecting men must 
have early perceived that unless some rules were held sacred and 
immovable in the guidance of their proceedings, an entire de- 
struction of the state must speedily ensue ; the catastrophe which 
should involve the whole in anarchy, accompanied in all likeli- 
hood with subjugation to a foreign power, would almost certainly 
be attended with the rebellion of their numerous slaves ; and the 
massacre of the free native inhabitants by these enraged inmates, 
the resident foreigners heading them, must have been a risk seldom 
out of the Athenian's view when political contention came to an 
extremity. The contemplation of a hazard never remote from 
the commonwealth was sufficient to prevent a people so singu- 
larly quick, acute, and intelligent, from lightly neglecting esta- 
blished rules, on the enforcement of which their very existence 
seemed to depend. Nothing but such a phrenzy as seized the 
people of Paris once in two thousand years, and spread to infect 
the colonies, could have made the factious divisions that ruined 
St. Domingo possible in a settlement where, as in Attica, a few 
thousand free men were surrounded, and might at any instant be 
overwhelmed, by myriads of slaves. The modes of proceeding, 
then, to which we have been referring were generally speaking 
maintained by common consent and as a matter of course ; and 
they must have had some tendency to moderate the power and 
regulate the caprice of the multitude. But after making all 
allowances, we must perceive that this power and caprice had 
quite scope enough to work the most extensive and the most re- 
mediless mischief. 

The body of the people in whom so predominant a power 
was vested were for the most part in needy circumstances; they 
voted secretly ; they were therefore exposed to corruption in all 
its forms, from the more refined influence of canvassing to the 
grosser substance of threats and bribes. Even supposing them to 
have acted without interested motives, their poverty, which was 
such that a large proportion received a small allowance daily 
from the public treasury or granary for their support, must have 



234 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE— ATHENS. [CH. XVII. 

greatly jarred with any patriotic principles if they had been suf- 
ficiently enlightened to feel their influence. But they were only 
half educated, and being wholly incapable of thinking for them- 
selves, abandoned themselves to the guidance of demagogues, 
who drove the disreputable trade of gaining an influence over 
them by a life of artifice and intrigue. The statesmen of Athens 
were the most consummate artists in their calling of orators that 
the world ever saw, and they were among the most profligate and 
unprincipled men that ever obtained dominion over a nation. 

The power possessed by the multitude to be exercised in 
crowded public assemblies, where nearly the whole business of 
the state, — executive, legislative, and judicial, — was carried on, 
made the profession of an orator the only important civil occupa- 
tion, and they who pursued it united the calling of the hired 
advocate with that of the politician. Now the necessity of advo- 
cates in every community governed by a system of laws is quite 
manifest ; the service which they render is exactly this, that 
without their aid justice could not be -administered, men's rights 
could not be secured, and the simple and the feeble could not be 
protected from the cunning and the powerful. But it is most essen- 
tial to morals that the advocate should be only the representative 
of other men in that openly avowed capacity, and that a# he says 
and does should be said and done by him as standing in the 
stead of the party. The politician, whether sitting in a senate by 
personal right, or delegated by others to consult for their good, 
acts in a judicial capacity, acts in his own proper person, and 
upon his own judgment ; he delivers his opinion because such are 
his convictions, and there cannot be a more corrupt or a more 
debasing employment of his faculties, or a more pernicious use 
of his position, than being alike prepared to support any side of 
any question. If all the members of both houses of the English 
parliament, or both the French chambers, who ever bear a part in 
their debates, were also advocates practising at the bar, the con- 
stitution of those assemblies w T ould suffer considerable damage 
from the unavoidable effect of the professional habit upon the 
political character. The large admixture of other leading men 
prevents this from happening to any great degree. If not only 
there were no such admixture, the advocate and the senator being 
completely identified, but if also the professional and the political 
functions were entirely blended and confused, by the judicial busi- 



CH. XVII.] CORRUPTION OF STATESMEN. 235 

ness being carried on in the same assemblies with the legislative, 
nay, in the greater number of cases the same question being both 
a cause, and a law or other state measure, it is easy to see how 
deep a wound must be inflicted upon public virtue — how wide a 
door opened to the contamination of statesmen's purity. The 
Athenian orator in some meetings of the Helisea spoke as the 
hired advocate of a party who was on his trial, or was prose- 
cuting an adversary; in others he wrote for lucre the party's 
speech which he was to deliver in his own person ; and the 
greatest of all this celebrated body was known to have occasion- 
ally written the addresses of both sides. In other meetings of the 
same tribunal he was to advise the state, but standing in the same 
place, addressing the same audience, employing the same re- 
sources, using the same artifices. No versatility of powers, no 
steadiness of principle, could in such circumstances enable any 
man to draw the line between the two capacities ; and while he 
gave himself wholly up to his client in the one, reserve himself 
wholly for his conscience and his country in the other. It was of 
inevitable necessity that he came soon to regard the conflict of the 
senate and forum as the same, and to be ready for any side of 
any question in both. Bad enough is it for the state, degrading 
enough for the individuals, that there should occasionally be 
men, or bodies of men, actuated by party views to the excess of 
regarding principles as indifferent, supporting whatever measures 
may tend to further such paltry interests, and opposing, it may 
be, the self-same measures because their adversaries have adopted 
them. But what only happens on rare occasions in France or in 
England, and is the pity or the scorn of all good men, according 
as they happen to be of a more humane temper, or a more severe, 
was the constant state of things at Athens, marshalling men on 
whichever side they found it for their interest to take, and making 
all principles be treated in very deed as the counters wherewith 
the game of faction was to be played.* 

There can be no question that these men exercised the powers 
of government by leading the multitude; and as the military 
commands were bestowed by the assembly in the same way with 
the magistracies, the generals were drawn into the political con- 
tests, and became partisans of the orators, in some instances 
sharing in their corruption, though generally much freer from 

* See Chap. V. 



236 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS. [CH. XVII. 

that taint than the gownsmen. These apparently were accessible 
to foreign influence, and even to corruption in its coarsest form. 
If all that is urged against Demosthenes respecting the embassy be 
put out of view, and his conduct before Philip be merely ascribed 
to embarrassment and timidity, there seems no ground for ques- 
tioning the bribery that afterwards led to his conviction. That we 
have only the powerful speech of his accuser, and are without the 
reply which he may have made to it, and that a tradition remains 
of Harpalus sending an account to Alexander of the manner in 
which he had squandered the treasure embezzled from him, with- 
out any mention of Demosthenes as receiving a part, is surely 
nothing like an argument to be set against the unanimous opinion 
of such a body as the Areopagus, by whose judgment, moreover, 
the great orator had professed his readiness to abide. Nor can 
the same excuse be urged for him that has been set up for the 
party in England which has been charged with receiving foreign 
pecuniary aid to further its attacks upon arbitrary power, and the 
establishment of its own principles.* The Athenian partisan had 
deemed it for the interest of his country to reject the proposals of 
the Macedonian, whose peculations made him the enemy of the 
prince he had robbed, until the fruits of those peculations were 
employed to silence the most eloquent of hu man tongues ; and it 
never has been suggested that the money, if received at all, was 
employed for any public purpose. f The mercenary nature of 
Demades was never disputed — it was hardly disguised by him- 
self; and Antipater's saying has been recorded, that he had two 

* There seems every reason to disbelieve the story, that the more distinguished 
leaders of the Whigs, especially Russell and Sidney, were parties to the assistance 
which some of them are believed to have had from Louis XIV. through his ambas- 
sador. Mr. Rose (Observations on Fox's Historical Work, sec. iv.) appears to acquit 
them of the charge, and he admits that the Tory leaders, with the King's connivance, 
received considerable sums, and even, like their master, pensions. Lord J. Russell, in 
his able and temperate Life of his illustrious ancestor (Chap, x.), has convicted the 
principal author of the charge, Sir J. Dalrymple, of a misstatement so gross as well to 
"deserve the epithet of " dishonest," which he gives it; and Barillon's predecessor, 
Colbert, it is curious enough to observe, describes the commissioners whom he was 
employed somewhat earlier to bribe, and among whom was the profligate and despic- 
able Buckingham, almost as Antipater had described Demades — persons, he says, 
whom he plainly saw nothing would satisfy. 

t Plutarch {Fit. Dem.) relates other instances of Demosthenes's corruption. If we 
may believe his account, Alexander found letters of the orator's in Persia that proved 
his having received sums of money from that court. But no one can impeach his 
purity during the long struggle with Philip, his enmity to whom seems to have been 
the predominating passion of his mind. 



CH. XVII.] CORRUPTION FACTION FICKLENESS. 237 

supporters at Athens, Phocion who would receive nothing, and 
Demades whom nothing would satisfy. Others made an open 
profession of such profligacy, and this became even the language 
of society among the political classes. In fact those politicians, 
looking to the support of the "multitude, could always reckon 
upon a good chance of escape from prosecution ; and if they were 
not actually condemned, they had always a sufficient number of 
partisans to cover them from the effects of public opinion. The 
operation of party in removing the chief incitements to good con- 
duct, and the most powerful restraints upon bad, has been already 
explained.* The Athenian factions and democracy worked in 
this manner more effectually than faction in our times; it was 
often easy for an individual, without party connexions, to obtain 
by rhetorical arts, especially when joined with corruption, in- 
demnity for the worst conduct; and once secured by a vote, 
however narrowly carried in his favour, the clearest proof of 
infamy, in the eyes of all virtuous and reflecting persons, was of 
no avail in effecting his downfall. That the fickleness of the 
people afforded chances of escape we have numerous proofs. 
The instance of Antiphon's first acquittal has already been men- 
tioned. The acquittal of Ctesiphon was perhaps justified in all 
the circumstances of the case, though it must be observed that 
the preponderance of the legal argument was against him,, and 
that an award of the honour in question to Demosthenes, avowedly 
given as an irregularity, though to be excused by his services, 
was all that in strictness should have been decreed. But the 
numerous court suffered itself to be carried away by his elo- 
quence, and, not content with honouring him, ruined his adver- 
sary, driving him into banishment by the failure of his prosecu- 
tion. How little it was possible to reckon upon the course which 
the people would take in any given case appeared the more clearly 
from this, that they were then for the most part attached to the 
Macedonian party, and hostile to the great orator, whose own 
fate was not long afterwards sealed by the same fickleness of the 
same people, recalling him from a just banishment to serve their 
own purposes, and immediately afterwards abandoning him to 
the fury of his enemy and their own, at a moment when he was 
wholly occupied with providing for their defence. 

The turbulence of the Assembly, and even of the less numerous 
* See Chap. V. 



238 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — ATHENS. [cH. XVII. 

tribunal, the Helioea, was as remarkable as the intrigues and pro- 
fligacy of the loading men. On many occasions there was an 
uproar excited by the predominant party, for the purpose of pre- 
venting an adversary from being heard, and this so successfully, 
that it is exceedingly uncertain that some of the noblest remains 
of Attic eloquence were ever delivered.* Such scandalous scenes 
were not confined to meetings held upon political questions; those 
of a judicial kind were sometimes, though not so frequently, dis- 
cussed under the same sinister influence; and instances were not 
wanting of the most eminent men, charged with the greatest 
offences, and desirous to defend themselves, yet prevented by 
clamour from obtaining a hearing. This happened to Demos- 
thenes himself in one stage of the accusation brought against, him 
for corruption, and it was therefore that he afterwards obtained a 
decree referring the case to the Areopagus. So sensible were the 
Athenians of this vice in their constitution, that an arrangement 
was made for the tribes taking upon themselves in rotation to 
guard the public meetings, and endeavour to maintain some 
order in their proceedings. The same causes, however, in which 
the evil originated affected also the remedy, and too often frus- 
trated its operation, namely, the fickle, inconstant, volatile temper 
of the people, and the great number of persons appointed to keep 
down tumult. These preservers of order were themselves led 
away by the predominant feelings, yielded to the excitement, and 
joined in the violence which they w T ere stationed to control. 

That the Athenians had not formed those sober and calm 
habits of both thinking and acting upon state affairs which alone 
can fit men for bearing a useful part in the government, and 
which may be wholly wanting even to a people of great acuteness, 
and very well acquainted with the particulars of each separate 
question brought before them (Part I., Chap. III.), seems quite 
indisputable. It is also extremely probable that the same bad 
constitution might have worked far better with another nation, or 
•with the same in a more advanced stage of improvement. But 
its vices were deeply rooted, and of a mischievous influence, which 
could in no circumstances have been fully counteracted. The 
want of the representative principle — the consequently too large 
numbers which attended the meetings of the most powerful body 
in the state — the exercise of administrative powers by such a 

* This controversy exists even as to the orations upon the Embassy. 



CH. XVII.] ADVANTAGES DERIVED FROM THE SYSTEM. 239 

number — the formation of the less numerous bodies by lot — and 
the confusion of judicial as well as legislative functions with 
executive — were defects of a nature so radical and pernicious as 
no improvement in the character and habits could ever be ex- 
pected to countervail. The entirely promiscuous nature of the 
assembly, and the extension of the same vicious composition to 
the Senate and the Helisea by the lot, exceedingly limited, though 
it did not wholly destroy, the influence of the Natural Aristocracy. 
This would of itself have been a fatal defect ; but even had these 
assemblies been composed entirely of the classes most fit to govern, 
and had their numbers been in consequence greatly diminished, 
the confusion of functions, and the consequent imperfection of the 
judicial system, would have still made the constitution inadequate 
to provide for its own stability, and to perform the most important 
of the services for the purpose of securing which all governments are 
established. 

It is, on the other hand, no less certain that the Athenian con- 
stitution was calculated to bestow those important benefits which 
flow from all popular systems, however ill contrived, and that at 
different periods it in fact did bestow those benefits. The uni- 
versal competition of talents, the emulation in virtue, the personal 
interest in the public welfare, the zeal for promoting it often at 
the expense of individual sacrifices, and very generally at the 
risk of individual suffering, not only led to the possession of 
extraordinary accomplishments, and the performance of bril- 
liant exploits, but placed the whole powers of the community at 
the disposal of its government, and, when sound counsels were 
followed, produced results out of all proportion to the natural 
resources of the country. The very defects themselves of the 
system had this tendency ; the part which each person was en- 
abled, and even called upon to take in the administration, and 
the risk to which failure in any civil measure or any military 
enterprise exposed all statesmen and captains, must often have 
produced exertions little likely to be made under a more regular 
and a more just dispensation. These results were dearly pur- 
chased by their concomitant mischiefs, and they were never to be 
relied upon in a scheme of polity such as we have been contem- 
plating. The extraordinary efforts which were successfully made 
to resist foreign aggression, in circumstances which, after every 
allowance is made for the gross exaggerations of historians, re- 



240 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS. [CH. XVII. 

cording, as usual, the traditions of national vanity, must be con- 
sidered as all but desperate, and the great power which, after 
these exertions, Athens obtained for a considerable period of time, 
are probably without a parallel in the history of any other nation. 
No one, however, can examine the annals of those times without 
perceiving how precarious the advantages were that thus accrued 
from the system, and with how many serious mischiefs they were 
accompanied. 



ch. xviii.] 241 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS (concluded)- 

OTHER STATES. 



Parties at Athens — Dalesmen, Mountaineers, Coastmen, and Trimmers — Usurpation of 
the Pisistratidae — Their downfall — Pisistratus — Clisthenes — Miltiades — Popular 
ingratitude — Fables on Marathon — Democratic reform — Aristides — Barbarous popu- 
lar excesses — Themistocles — His maltreatment— Athenian greatness — Pericles — 
Alcibiades — Thirty Tyrants — Faction — Rebellion — Socrates — Other States — Boeotia 
— iEtolia — Corcyra — Achaea — Foreign appeals. 

The opposite parties of the patricians and the plebeians, the 
landowners in the plains (or dalesmen) and the mountaineers, 
between which Solon had steered his course with so much address, 
continued, in his time and after him, to distract the nation. But 
the party of the coast had grown up to importance, and (as the 
phrase used to be in England a hundred and eighty years ago) 
trimmed between the other two. The Alcmceonidee, the most 
powerful family, descended from the kings and perpetual archons, 
and always desirous of regaining their family's mastery over the 
state which was termed tyranny or the supreme government of an 
individual, set themselves at the head of this third party ; but not- 
withstanding their great influence, they exposed themselves to a 
degree of public odium from which they never could entirely recover, 
by violating a sanctuary in order to destroy the rival party, that 
of Cylon, the leaders of which had taken refuge there when his 
attempt failed to usurp the chief power. While the contest lay 
between the trimmers, headed by the Alcmceonidse, and the dales- 
men, headed by the patrician Lycurgus, Pisistratus, the chief of 
another great family, paid his court to the mountaineers, and 
seized by their help upon the chief power. The other two parties 
coalesced against him, and drove him out of the country ; their 
leaders quarrelled, and he was enabled to return, but was again 
expelled; new dissensions enabled him, after thirteen years' exile, 

PART II. R 



242 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS. [CH. XVIII. 

again to return, and by the aid of a force which he brought with 
him, and of his adherents in the popular or mountain party, to re- 
possess himself of the government, which he retained till his death, 
and left to his sons. All the institutions of Solon were preserved 
during the fifty years of this tyranny ; the family governed strictly 
according to his laws; they conferred many benefits on the com- 
munity, and made many improvements ; they were always favoured 
by the people, to whom they paid unceasing court ; but an act of 
violence and injustice which was connected with unchaste passions 
both in them and in those they endeavoured to oppress, and 
which was calculated, like the excesses of Tarquin at Rome, to 
excite public indignation, was taken advantage of by the patrician 
and coast factions to ruin their credit. One of them was killed 
by the injured individuals; and the others having become the 
objects of public indignation, the Alcmceonidae family now saw an 
opportunity of attaining the great object of their ambition, the 
tyranny, by taking the line which Pisistratus had pursued. They 
left the trimmers, or such of them as they could not persuade to 
join them in heading the mountaineers, and Clisthenes, their 
chief, obtained the power which Pisistratus had held by the same 
means, by paying court to the popular party, and by also avail- 
ing himself of assistance from Sparta. But he gave the people an 
influence which the Pisistratidae had withheld ; he made those 
additions, of which we have already spoken, to the tribes and 
senate, and to the officers chosen by the people. The patricians, 
under Isagoras, struggled against him, and finding they had no 
chance of success, they in their turn also called in the assistance 
of Sparta, and the party of Clisthenes appealed to Persia for help, 
which was refused, unless upon terms that the Athenians would 
not submit to. The Spartans, joined by the Boeotians and others, 
were at first successful ; and Clisthenes with seven hundred fami- 
lies of his party were driven out of the country. A quarrel 
between the two Spartan kings, on the eve of a great battle, occa- 
sioned their forces to be withdrawn, and the Athenians defeating 
their allies, Clisthenes and his party were recalled. The accident 
of his adversaries, the aristocratic party, under Isagoras, having 
been assisted by Sparta, not only confirmed the attachment of the 
Alcmceonidse to popular principles, but to the cause of Athenian 
independence. Sparta being the leader of the aristocratic, oli- 
garchical, or Dorian faction in Greece, Athens was at the head of 






CH. XVIII.] MARATHON — MILTIADES. 243 

the Ionian or democratic ; and the decidedly democratic turn 
which the Athenian government took began with Clisthenes 
though it was only completed by the Persian war. 

This celebrated struggle was mainly occasioned by the family 
and faction of the Pisistratidse, who had taken refuge in the court 
of Darius, and by their intrigues led him to undertake the con- 
quest of Greece. The Athenians, deserted by the other states, 
met his invading army, in which the exiled chief of that faction, 
Hippias, had a forward appointment. Three generals, with the 
right of commanding in rotation, headed the Athenian army; and 
when two of them, Aristides and Themistocles, desired to give up 
their turn that Miltiades, the more experienced leader, might 
conduct the fight, he knew the nature of the people he served too 
well to accept it, being quite aware that any mischance must 
prove his ruin, had he commanded out of his turn. He waited 
till his day came, and gained the immortal victory of Marathon, 
certainly one of the greatest achievements in the history of war, 
although the accounts preserved by Greek writers, our only au- 
thorities, give it almost a fabulous aspect.* For a little while the 
illustrious captain, who had performed this prodigious service, was 
the idol of his countrymen. But an expedition which he had 
been allowed to undertake on representing the great treasure that 
would accrue from it, proved unsuccessful ; he was tried upon a 
charge of misconduct whilst commanding in Thrace at a former 
period of his life ; like Sir Walter Raleigh, he was sentenced be- 
cause the avarice of his tyrants had been disappointed ; and, like 
that great man, he was punished upon an obsolete charge by the 
ingratitude, not indeed of the prince, but of the people whom he 
had faithfully and brilliantly served. 

The war was renewed after Darius's death by his son, with a 
force altogether overwhelming. Athens was now joined by Sparta, 

* We are desired to believe that 120,000 Persian troops, brought over in 600 vessels, 
were entirely defeated by 11,000 Greeks, with a loss of between 6,000 and 7,000 
men, the conquerors only losing 182. Nor is any explanation given of the means by 
which the remainder of the beaten army, still sufficient to overwhelm the Athenians, 
were prevented from executing their plan of doubling Cape Sunium, and marching to 
Athens immediately after the battle, The other Greek states had held back from the 
contest, being well disposed to yield the merely nominal submission which would have 
satisfied Darius. That the Athenians refused to yield this submission is perhaps less 
a proof of their constancy than their sagacity ; for they well knew that as the whole 
quarrel was with them, no terms they could submit to were likely to save them from 
the king's tyranny. 

r2 



244 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE ATHENS. [CH. XVIII. 

while Thebes and other states took part with the invader. After 
an almost miraculous display of valour and self-devotion at Ther- 
mopylae, and the greatest naval victory of ancient times at Salamis, 
the force of numbers prevailed, and Athens was twice taken and 
sacked within a few months. It was at this crisis that Aristides 
conceived the design of completing the reforms of Clisthenes. 
Though a decided supporter of the patrician party, he had early 
perceived the powerful effect of those reforms in calling forth the 
exertions of the people, and he introduced the great change in 
the constitution by which all offices were thrown open to every 
class of the people. There might be the greatest objections to 
this measure, though it seemed difficult to stop short in reform at 
the point where Clisthenes had left it ; but all must, confess that 
Aristides deserved the greatest commendation both for overcoming 
his early prejudices, and for rising superior to the paltry fear of 
being deemed inconsistent. The spirit of the nation was now 
raised to the highest pitch of excitement, and while it enabled the 
chiefs to perform the greatest exploits, it also burst forth into the 
most barbarous excesses both of cruelty and injustice. Splendid 
victories were gained against great superiority of force., and after 
that of Platsea above 200,000 of their enemies were massacred 
when incapable of resisting. The most strenuous opposition was 
by the spirit of the people made to the invading army, while the 
odds seemed wholly against them ; and they stoned to death at 
different times two of their orators (Cyrsilus and Lycidus) for 
merely proposing to negotiate in desperate circumstances, their 
women in one of these instances acting the part of furies and 
murdering the w T ife of the offender.* 

The naval power of Athens was founded, and the city rebuilt 
and fortified, by the wise and vigorous counsels of Themistocles ; 
and he was soon after banished from the country he had so often 
saved. This petty state not only rose to the head of all the 
Greeks, and gave the law to them for above fifty years, but ex- 
tended its dominion over the islands, obtained possession of the 
coast which forms the key of the Euxine, and at one time held a 
large part of Egypt. This too was the period when the fine arts 
made the greatest progress, when those works were produced 

* Demosthenes reminds the Athenians of this brutal passage in their history as one 
of peculiar glory, and as well calculated to rouse up a spirit equally honourable. 
(D* Corona.) 



CH. XVIII.] ATHENIAN GREATNESS. 245 

which are still the admiration of the world even in the fragments 
that time has spared to us, and when the foundations were pre- 
pared for those more precious works of a higher art which happily 
bids defiance to its ravages. Though Pericles, under whose aus- 
pices these great things were done, went far in corrupting the 
people to retain his power, yet he kept himself wholly independent, 
consulting their interests and his own glory as bound up with 
theirs, but rather dictating to them than suffering them to pre- 
scribe his course; whereas, says the historian, those who followed 
him shaped the public measures for their own aggrandisement 
and profit, accommodating themselves and giving up the manage- 
ment of affairs to the mere pleasure of the people.* 

The Peloponnesian war exhibited constant proofs of the inevit- 
able consequence of the new leadership, and the radical vices of 
the constitution. But it may suffice to mention the Sicilian expe- 
dition, and the conduct of Alcibiades. His personal influence, 
and that of his faction, induced the people to undertake the con- 
quest of Sicily, for which their resources were utterly inadequate, 
and against the soundest advice of their most experienced generals. 
On the eve of his departure he was impeached for sacrilege, but 
allowed to sail, his trial being postponed. On the eve of a battle 
he was recalled, but escaped and joined the Spartans, the chiefs 
of the league against his country, while the two Athenian armies 
in Sicily were destroyed. After reducing Athens to the greatest 
straits and peril at the head of her enemies, he intrigued with the 
Persian king — regained his influence at home — established an 
oligarchy of four hundred — was suffered to return — became more 
popular than ever — removed the new constitution and substituted 
another — was actually offered the supreme power in the state — 
suddenly lost the favour he had acquired, by the giddy people 
laying on him the blame which another officer had alone incurred, 
refusing to hear his defence, and driving him into exile. 

After many years of various fortune Sparta succeeded in over- 
coming her great rival, overthrowing the popular government, 
and planting an oligarchy, commonly called the Thirty Tyrants, 



* Thucyd., ii., 65. The expression is remarkable, and stronger than in the text — 
Ergatfovro Tcccd' h^ova.; ru ^n^oo xa.) rex, *^a.yiAa.ra., &C. Et^tovto is " turned round,' 
"jumped about," as men do in treading grapes. He had said just before, that though, 
in the time of Pericles, the government was nominally democratic, yet in reality it was 
in the hands of the first men in the state. 



246 GOVERNMENTS OF GREECE — ATHENS. [CH. XVIII. 

in its place. A system of terror, maintained by numerous assassi- 
nations, had led to the establishment of the Four Hundred, and 
contributed to maintain their power. Other murders under the 
colour of judicial proceedings attended their overthrow. Their 
tyranny, and the outrages both committed by them and against 
their adherents, were far exceeded by the Thirty, who in the short 
period of eight months put upwards of 1500 citizens to death, and 
indulging in every excess of arbitrary power, sacrificed not only 
all who were likely to shake their dominion, but all whose wealth 
offered any temptation, or whose death could gratify any per- 
sonal animosity.* Their overthrow restored the democratic con- 
stitution, and the government by factions and their chiefs, among 
whom there was constantly scope for the interference of Sparta, 
now predominant by land in Greece, as Athens still continued to 
be by sea. The same system of tumult and intrigue, but rendered 
more pernicious than ever by the destruction which the thirty 
tyrants had effected of almost all the eminent men in the state, 
continued during the rise of the Macedonian power, and prepared 
the way for that final ascendancy which destroyed the independ- 
ence of Athens, and secured her comparative tranquillity, without 
any remains of her ancient glory, until with the rest of Greece 
she became part of a Roman province. 

In the whole history of Greek faction and democracy there is 
nothing more remarkable than this, that in the very communities 
which of all that ever existed were the most inflamed with 
national feeling of patriotic spirit and mutual hatred, one of the 
most ordinary occurrences should have been the appeals of con- 
tending parties to the enemies of their country for help in carry- 
ing on their factious contests; and that the worst kind of treason 
— joining the public enemy, and both counselling and assisting 
his operations — should have formed almost a regular part of the 
political conduct pursued by the leaders of every faction which 
happened to be defeated. A French, or English, or American 
faction does not form a coalition with other parties once adverse to 
his own, nay, hardly appeals to the country at an election 
against the faction that has removed him from office with less 

* They governed by a larger council of 3C00 well-armed men, selected from among 
the wealthier classes, and by whose aid they disarmed the rest of the community. The 
scenes which took place in this assembly, and the destruction by its means of their 
adversaries, and sometimes, as in the case of Theramenes, of members of their own 
body, strongly remind the reader of the reign of terror in Paris. 



CH. XVIII.] FACTIOUS REBELLION. 247 

reluctance or fewer scruples than an Athenian patriot, upon being 
ill-treated by the people, showed in betaking himself to the 
Spartan camp or the court of the Persian despot. Nor does the 
reputation of the man who so acted appear to have suffered any 
indelible stain, any more than his return to popular favour was 
prevented by their openly avowed treasons. 

The low standard of patriotism and political feeling, the want 
of a genuine public spirit, and the frightful vehemence of faction, 
is not the only matter which such facts as these illustrate. The 
odious tyranny of the multitude must have reached a height, and 
become a grievance altogether intolerable, giving to the country 
itself the aspect of a capricious and cruel despot, clothing it in 
attitudes at once frightful and hateful, and stripping it of all that 
should naturally win affection or respect. We may well believe 
how unbearable a tyranny it must have been that could induce a 
man of such perfect virtue as Socrates to espouse the party of those 
who, under the dictation of the victorious enemy, overthrew it to 
set up in its stead the oligarchy which proved beyond measure 
more insupportable still ; nay, could even make him adhere to 
that oligarchy when its hands were stained with the blood of the 
most eminent persons in the state. To his political connexion 
with these men, and his having been the teacher of Critias and 
Theramenes, their leaders, and the worst among them, his own 
condemnation, under the most false pretexts, was undoubtedly 
owing; and this judicial murder adds one, and not the least dis- 
graceful, to the catalogue of crimes for which the constitution and 
the people of Athens are answerable.* 



* Socrates had nobly distinguished himself in resisting the determination of the 
people to condemn the generals who had gained the battle of Arginusa. The clamour 
of faction against these great public benefactors succeeded in obtaining sentence of 
death upon them immediately after their victory, and Socrates exposed himself to the 
fury of the mob by refusing, as presiding officer in the assembly (proedrus), to let the 
question be put. The judicial murder was nevertheless perpetrated immediately after. 
He exposed himself to the resentment of the Thirty in like manner, by refusing to join 
in executing an order of theirs to put a wealthy man to death in their proscription. 
He, however, had been named as one of those deputed to do the work, and he remained 
at Athens unmolested, and even adhering to them during their reign. He and Xeno- 
phon had the utmost aversion to the democratic constitution and party, and the prose- 
cution against him was instigated by the leaders of Thrasybulus's party, which had 
overturned the tyrants. A solemn oath having been taken by the people to maintain 



248 GOVERNMENTS OF ANCIENT GREECE. [CH. XVIII. 

It would be impossible, from the extraordinary and conflicting 
notices left of them, to examine minutely the constitutions of the 
other Greek slates, even if there were any good purpose to be 
served by the inquiry, after having entered so much at large as 
we have done into the subject of the two leading commonwealths. 
Most of the others appear to have borne a general resemblance to 
Athens, both in the form of their government and in their history ; 
some, however, having a more aristocratic or oligarchical system. 
But the defects of the great democracy seem to have been still 
more strikingly exhibited in some of these less considerable sys- 
tems of polity than in the Athenian, while in all of them that 
intolerable and factious violence, which prevailed in Athens and 
Sparta, were carried to a greater pitch. 

The Theban, or rather Boeotian, government was in the hands 
of a council from all the eleven towns, or petty states of the union, 
and of eleven chiefs called Boeotarchy, who, as well as the two 
polemarchs at the head of domestic concerns, were chosen for a 
year ; and such was the jealousy of those chiefs acquiring inde- 
pendent power, that it was an offence punishable with death to 
refuse quitting their office within one month after it expired. No 
person could fill any high office until he had ceased for ten years 
to carry on any retail trade. 

Other instances of jealousy towards the magistrates are to be 
found in different commonwealths. Thus the iEtolians, a federal 
union like the Boeotians, had a chief annually chosen, and whose 
duty it was to convoke the general council, called Pancetolon. He 
was to lay before it the cause of its assembling, but was prohibited 
from making any speech whatever upon the subject. To him, 
however, was intrusted the execution of the decrees and laws 
made by the assembly. This imposing silence upon the executive 
is the converse of the scheme in earlier times adopted in Crete, 
and at Sparta, of allowing the assembly only to determine on the 
matters propounded without any discussion. 

Corcyra seems, of all these ancient states, to have been the 
most renowned for violence and sedition, insomuch that " Cor- 
cyrian sedition" came to be a proverbial expression. One of 
these violent anarchies is recorded in which, besides butchering or 

animosity grounded upon that charge, and the restoration of the old democracy, it was 
impossible to try Socrates for the real offence which he had given, and the superstitious 
ground was found as effectual. 






CH. XVIII.] TWO GREAT PARTIES. 249 

banishing the sixty senators, each town, and even each house, 
was divided against itself; brothers, nay, even parents and chil- 
dren, shedding each other's blood. 

In all these commonwealths the great bulk of the people were 
slaves ; and in the Achaean state it happened that the grown-up 
men having been greatly reduced in numbers by the Spartan 
invasion, the slaves rose, took the whole management of the 
government into their own hands, and had entire possession of the 
country for some years. How they were overpowered we are not 
distinctly informed, but they were either extirpated or banished in 
a body. 

Each of the states, and indeed each town of every state, was 
divided into two factions, arranged against each other with that 
implacable and unscrupulous fury which is only known in petty 
states, subject to the curse of unbalanced popular government. 
These two parties, the democratic and aristocratic or oligarchical, 
were always in openly avowed correspondence with the two great 
leaders of the party, Athens and Sparta ; so that besides the mis- 
chiefs of civil broils, of themselves sufficiently intolerable, they 
were exposed to the yet more unbearable evils arising out of 
foreign influence. The worst of all wars is, no doubt, a civil war; 
but a civil war, in part waged by foreign co-operation, is a worser 
form of civil war. 



250 [ch. xix. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS MUNICIPAL CONSTITUTIONS AND 

ARISTOCRACY. 



Feudal plan monarchical — Rise of Aristocracy — Civic Nobility — Otho I. — General 
form of Government — Consuls — Credenza — Senate — Parliament — Wars of the 
Cities — Pavia and Milan — War of the Towns — Treaty of Constance. 

The feudal system, of which we formerly traced the establish- 
ment in Italy, especially in its northern and middle divisions 
(Part i., Chap, xvm.), created a state of society out of which 
aristocratic government arose as its natural growth. We have 
seen the rise of such institutions in Rome and Sparta from the 
separation of the class which had effected the conquest of the 
country, and retained for itself and its descendants the exclusive 
possession of political power, treating the original inhabitants, and 
all foreigners who settled among them, as an inferior order of per- 
sons. The northern nations who overran Italy, beside their supe- 
riority as conquerors, introduced a new distinction, not at first so 
powerful in maintaining the difference of ranks, but much more 
desirable — that of territorial possession. The land became the 
property of the conquerors ; and such portions of it as were left to 
the original inhabitants could only be possessed by them on pay- 
ing a portion of its produce. The portion of land which was 
entirely taken from them, was again subdivided among the con- 
querors, so as to create distinctions in their ranks; but all of 
them — all the free and military settlers and their descendants, 
.whether holding whole provinces under the prince, or only holding 
smaller portions under those great proprietors — formed an order 
distinguished from the rest of the community, who were either in 
a state of bondage or of vassalage to them if they were allowed to 
possess or to cultivate the land; and, if unconnected with the 
land, were, whether free or bondsmen, reckoned of no account in 
the state until their industry as artisans and traders had given 



CH. XIX.] FEUDAL ARISTOCRACY 251 

them wealth and importance. There was thus a privileged class 
or aristocracy in all those feudal states ; but the government was 
monarchical ; it was a gradation of monarchical divisions ; and the 
lord or baron was the monarchical chief of his vassals ; the great 
feudatories, the duke or count, or on the frontiers the marquis, 
was the chief of the barons ; and the king or prince was the chief 
of the great feudatories. Whatever division there was of power 
and of influence consisted in the sharing of it between the prince 
and those great feudatories, or between the great feudatories and 
their barons. Between the barons and their vassals there was no 
such partition, any more than between the vassals and those sub- 
feudatories who held of them, or between any of those classes of 
landowners and the serfs who cultivated the ground. 
v It is, for our present purpose, immaterial in what way we de- 
cide the questions which have been raised on this subject : whe- 
ther the whole army obtaining grants of land, the whole of the ori- 
ginal conquerors in any district, became the privileged, the noble 
class, or only the superior portions of them, the companions of 
the chief or prince ; and whether in subsequent times the privi- 
leges and rank of nobles were confined to those landowners who 
held immediately under the prince, or were extended to those 
also who held under the great feudatories. It is most probable 
that income places where the number of the invaders was small, 
or soon became small, as a separate class they might form, like 
the ancient Roman and Spartan patricians, the privileged class ; 
while in other provinces this distinction was confined to a limited 
number in a large body of settlers. It is also likely that the im- 
mediate holders under the prince enjoyed distinctions over the 
other landowners ; and when the great feudatories became them- 
selves rather princes federally connected with the common chief, 
king, or emperor, than subjects of his crown, their barons formed 
a noble class as holding under princes rather than under subjects. 
But in what way soever we consider these questions, the establish- 
ment of distinct classes or orders of men in each community is 
clear; in each community there was a body different from the 
bulk of the people, and possessing privileges which the people 
did not enjoy. This body originally consisted of considerable 
lnadowners — at all times it possessed the great bulk of the landed 
property, either directly or by rights which it held over the 
immediate cultivators. But as its privileges were hereditary, and 



252 ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS. [CH. XIX. 

descended to all the posterity of the first proprietors, in process 
of time the body consisted of many persons possessing very little 
landed property, and of many possessing none at all, as well as of 
great proprietors. The importance of the class depended upon 
the territorial rights of its more considerable members. The 
more numerous and poorer members had privileges which distin- 
guished them from the rest of the community; but they were, like* 
the mere vassals, rather followers of the chiefs than partakers of 
their power. There was thus an aristocracy within an aristo- 
cracy ; the whole body of the nobles was distinguished from the 
rest of the people ; but the real aristocracy consisted of the 
wealthy nobles, according to the distribution of the Natural Aris- 
tocracy. 

We have already (Part i., Chap, xm.) traced the origin of 
the great titles both in France and Italy, originally personal 
offices conferred by the sovereign upon the more powerful nobles, 
as governors of districts or towns; afterwards, through the negli- 
gence or weakness of the prince, made hereditary in their families. 
In the Lombard kingdom, but still more universally under the 
Carlovingian, all the considerable towns of Italy were under 
governors — at first under dukes, who held a large district ; but 
afterwards under counts, who represented the sovereign in the 
several towns. In each town the count (who was sometimes the 
bishop also, and always commanded the forces as well as presided 
in the tribunals) had a kind of court or council in administering 
justice; it was composed of burghers, chosen by the count, and 
approved by the rest of the inhabitants, and called sculdasci, as 
we have seen (Part I., Chap, xvu.), answering to the scabini or 
Eschevins of the Franks. The count, accompanied by these ma- 
gistrates, attended the sovereign's court or general assembly, at 
which his decrees were published, and received the kind of sanc- 
tion, little more than a formality, required to give them the force 
of laws. The villages were the property of the barons, and inha- 
. bited by their vassals, who cultivated the land under them, paying 
a certain proportion of the produce, and rendering certain services, 
as well as attending the subordinate courts, in which tfce barons, 
with their assistance, administered justice, and following them in 
war as their militia. 

The burghers by degrees acquired some importance, and be- 
came in many instances a counterpoise on behalf of the people to 



CH. XIX.] CIVIC NOBILITY. 253 

the count's authority. But in the country the barons met with no 
opposition, and found no one of any importance in wealth or of 
any influence to match with their own. There subsisted a con- 
stant jealousy between the towns and the barons. The burghers 
considered that the country districts which lay under the dominion 
of the barons naturally belonged to the town, which depended 
upon them for its supplies; and the barons, who disliked any 
rivalry of the burghers, were better pleased to remain constantly 
among their own vassals in the country, avoiding all intercourse 
with the towns. Meanwhile the power both of the towns and 
the barons was increasing, though in very different degrees, the 
towns making a much more rapid progress towards independence. 
The first step made, however, was common to both. The northern 
nations, from jealousy of the conquered people, had made it a 
settled rule of their policy to destroy all fortifications, to keep 
every town open, and to prevent all country residences from being 
surrounded with walls or other outworks. This policy was main- 
tained during the subsistence of the Lombard kingdom, from the 
latter part of the sixth to the latter part of the eighth century. 
But during the Carlovingian monarchy, and the unsettled times 
which succeeded it, the sovereign found it necessary to pursue a 
different course in order to protect the country against the new 
swarms of barbarians, especially the Huns, who were continually 
making inroads into Italy; and in the ninth and tenth centuries 
charters of fortification were granted by the sovereign, who alone 
was considered as intrusted with the public defence, to all towns 
of any consequence, and even to most villages, monasteries, and 
baronial residences ; so that these all became places of strength, 
afforded shelter to the neighbourhood, were places of refuge to 
the people whom the barons or their followers oppressed, and also 
enabled those baronial followers to escape, whom the quarrels of 
the barons placed in frequent jeopardy. A considerable increase 
in the population, in the wealth and generally in the importance 
of the towns, especially of the larger ones, was the consequence. 
But this additional importance of their inhabitants was attended 
with the almost entire separation of the nobles, who now confined 
themselves to their caslles, and the domains cultivated b} T their 
vassals and their enfranchised serfs attached to the soil, and 
neither liable to be removed by the owner nor free to quit it of 
themselves. 



254 ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS. [CH. XIX. 

The government of the towns, too, the municipal police, and 
administration of justice, was exceedingly imperfect, until the 
foundation of the Saxon kingdom of Italy by Otho I., commonly 
and justly called the Great, under whose reign a very important 
change was made in the condition of the Italian towns. It is not 
often that men have happened to bestow this appellation on those 
whose warlike exploits were their least remarkable distinction, and 
whose conquests over barbarism and anarchy long survived the 
influence and even the memory of their military exploits. This 
eminent person finally overthrew, in 965, after a contest of four 
years, the kingdom of Italy, which had been a prey to various 
princes during the anarchy of half a century after the Carlovingian 
dynasty ended in Charles le Gros. The feudal army by which 
this conquest was effected could only have been kept together so 
as to retain the country in subjection by seizing the greater part 
of the land and dividing it among the commanders and their fol- 
lowers. Notwithstanding the hatred in which he was naturally 
held by the Lombard barons, Otho was too just and too wise to 
adopt such a policy. He ran the risk of his conquests being ren- 
dered insecure by the return of his German troops to their own 
country, when the respective periods of their service expired, and 
he left the Italian barons in possession of their lands and their 
castles, however ill-disposed towards him he knew them to be. 
Instead of establishing an authority which must always have been 
shaken by his absence from the scene of his victories, consequently 
rendering each visit to his hereditary dominions dangerous to his 
new acquisitions, he judiciously laid the foundation of an admir- 
able influence by giving the towns such privileges as should secure 
their good government, and at the same time render them his 
steady allies against the discontented barons, by establishing their 
independence, and making them owe it to his favour. He took 
the precaution, indeed, of bestowing upon his own brother, Henry 
of Bavaria, the duchy of Carinthia and the marquisate of Verona 
. and Frioul, because this secured the entrance into Italy. He 
created three other great fiefs — Este, Modena, and Monferrat — 
into marquisates for his adherents. But the other fiefs he left un- 
touched : in these the power of the great feudatories was greater 
over their barons and vassals than was that of the new feudatories 
whom he had created, and who could make no resistance to the 
attacks upon their authority, except by entirely quitting the town* 






CH. XIX.] MUNICIPAL CONSTITUTIONS. 255 

and strengthening themselves in their castles. But in all the fiefs 
the baronial power, as opposed to the towns, became exceedingly 
weakened, in consequence of the municipal institutions which 
Otho allowed the burghers to obtain. 

Hitherto the count intrusted with the government of each town 
had been assisted by a council of sculdasci chosen from the body 
of the burghers. There was now a general desire of returning to 
the ancient Roman plan of municipal government. Otho, ever 
inclined to gratify the wishes of the citizens, allowed each town to 
appoint two consuls, annually chosen by the people ; and these 
were charged with the administration of justice, and with the com- 
mand of the town's militia. It was also the office of the consuls 
to convoke and to preside over the councils, which were two in 
number : one called the credenza, or secret council, an executive 
body, small in number, and charged with the financial concerns 
of the community as well as its foreign relations, assisting and 
also controlling the consuls ; the other, a more numerous bodv, 
and forming a senate — the name by which it went in many towns, 
though in some it was called the greater, in others the special 
council, its principal office being to prepare the legislative and 
administrative measures which were to be laid before the general 
assembly of the people. In that assembly, or 'parliament, as it 
was generally termed, the supreme power might be said to reside; 
but it was only convoked upon important occasions, and in almost 
all the towns its deliberations were confined to those matters 
which had received the previous sanction of the two councils, the 
senate and the credenza. These councils were chosen by the dif- 
ferent districts or wards into which the town was divided, and 
each of which also furnished one or more troops of horse and 
companies of heavy infantry : the former troops chosen by the 
wealthier burghers, the latter from those next in degree, while 
the rest of the inhabitants joined the military levy lightly armed — 
every person between eighteen and seventy being obliged to serve. 
The service of the state was not the only one in which these forces 
were employed. The towns asserted their independence against 
the barons of the adjoining territory, and against the great feuda- 
tories themselves, and Otho and his successors encouraged this 
struggle. 

Nor could they prevent another incident of the feudal system — 
the general right of private war — from extending itself to the 



25G ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS. [CH. XIX. 

towns, which, accordingly, carried on frequent hostilities with one 
another. The chief contest lay between the two most powerful 
towns, Pavia and Milan, and their hostility was bitter and of long 
duration. When the Saxon family was extinct in 1002, on the 
death of Otho's grandson, those two towns took opposite parts in 
the war of the disputed succession ; and both they and all the 
other towns established their municipal privileges more securely 
during that contest. The separation of the burghers and the 
nobility had now become everywhere complete ; and the progress 
which the former had made in wealth and importance from the 
gradual increase of their commerce during the eleventh century 
excited the jealousy of the barons, who, except when they attended 
the occasional general assemblies or diets, held by the emperors 
on their visits to Italy, found their importance reduced within a 
narrow compass, and had not the benefits of the police which the 
towns maintained, but were obliged to provide for their own secu- 
rity by the force which they severally supported. This jealousy 
broke out in the reign of Conrad II. (the Salic) between the 
barons and the city of Milan, then under the government of Arch- 
bishop Heribert ; and after hostilities in which other towns took 
part, the emperor brought about a general pacification by the new 
and very important ordinances which he promulgated in the diet 
held at Roncaglia in 1026, establishing the hereditary right to 
fiefs, unless on the forfeiture of the vassal for felony, and declaring 
all serfs personally free, though annexed to the soil. Soon after 
Conrad's decease in 1039, the practice became general for the 
inferior nobility, especially the less wealthy landowners, to enrol 
themselves as burgesses in the neighbouring towns, and thus 
acquire the protection of the burgher forces, as well as a voice in 
the administration of the civic affairs. The townspeople were 
inclined to pay them court, and to obtain the fellowship also of 
the more powerful barons, by giving them a share in the municipal 
offices, both because of their capacity to form the cavalry of their 
burgher militia, and because of the power which the command of 
the castles enabled them to exert over the traffic of each town. 
Out of this state of things arose the governments of the towns in 
the north and middle of Italy. 

We have in the former part of this work (Part I., Chap, vin.) 
described the long war carried on by the See of Rome with the 
Franconian emperors upon the dispute of the investitures. For 






CH. XIX.] WAR OF TOWNS. 257 

sixty years the towns were divided by this controversy, taking 
part, some with the emperors, some with the see ; but the effect 
of these operations, both the civil intrigues and the military move- 
ments, was greatly to increase the influence of the townspeople, 
and to make their subjugation by the emperor more difficult when 
he was afterwards disposed to take part with the barons, and 
revoke the municipal privileges granted by the Saxon princes. 
The war of the investitures was closed in 1122 by the peace of 
Worms. Thirty years after this treaty, Frederick Barbarossa, 
being related by blood both to the Guelph and Ghibelline 
families, as our Henry VII. was to the House of Lancaster by 
blood and the House of York by marriage, was enabled to ex- 
tinguish during his long reign the feud, which afterwards broke 
out more fiercely than ever upon his election as emperor, and his 
assumption of the Italian kingdom. He was encouraged by the 
advantages of his position, at the head of both the parties, to at- 
tempt subduing the Italian cities. The people of Lodi having ap- 
pealed to him for aid against the Milanese, who had for forty 
years kept them in cruel subjection, he took their part, and re- 
pairing to Roncaglia, where he held the diet, as was customary, 
he there received the complaints of other towns against their 
oppressors. He was soon at the head of a formidable league, 
the principal member being Pavia, and he was immediately in- 
volved in hostilities against Milan and the towns which sided with 
her. This war continued for thirty years to lay waste the Italian 
territories and towns ; but it called forth displays of patriotism 
and of courage which rendered their conquest impossible, even if 
Frederick's German resources had been far more available than 
those of any feudal monarchy ever could be. We have already 
seen (Part i., Chap, xix.) that he was compelled to acknowledge 
the entire independence of the towns and their municipal go- 
vernment by the treaty of Constance, which terminated this long 
conflict. 

The acknowledgment of independence by the peace of Con- 
stance was an event of great importance to the Italian cities, and 
may be regarded as the foundation of their governments. Although 
before this war they had, ever since the time of Otho I., asserted 
their freedom, and, during the Saxon dynasty, had in fact enjoyed 
it, they were always regarded as by law subject to the empire, 
and they never openly claimed to be independent of it. They 

part n. s 



258 ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS. [CH. XIX. 

swore fealty j t hey paid tribute ; and tive years after the war had 
commenced, and notwithstanding that Frederick had concluded a 
treaty with the Milanese, recognising their right to elect consuls, 
and engaging that his troops should not enter their town, his 
military operations having failed, or only proved successful by 
the plague and famine that aided him, yet a diet held at Ron- 
caglia, with the full consent of the laity, though influenced by the 
slavish counsels of the clergy and the lawyers, had given up to the 
crown the rights of regalia, as toll, coining money, mills, fisheries, 
with the power of seizing the great fiefs, and of levying a general 
capitation tax, and of naming all consuls and judges, but with 
consent of the burgesses. Frederick had accordingly sent to all 
the towns strangers to act as judges, under the name of podestas ; 
and these being his creatures, devoted to his interests, were found 
in constant opposition to the consuls, who, though chosen by him, 
belonged to the cities in which they were appointed, and had been 
accepted by the people. Hence the great object of the war on 
Frederick's part had been to supersede the consular authority, or 
abolish the office altogether. The right of private war had also 
been taken from the towns, as well as from the great feudatories 
and barons at the same diet; but so manifest an improvement in 
the administration of the government had excited no avowed op- 
position, however much it might secretly be disliked by those 
whose powers of annoyance and oppression were thus restrained. 

The position in which the peace of Constance had placed the 
empire and the towns was widely different from that in which the 
diet of 1 158 had left the parties. All rights of royalty {regalia) 
within the walls of each town were secured to its government, 
together with all rights which had actually been exercised in the 
adjoining district or country territory belonging to it. Every 
town was, moreover, recognised as entitled to levy troops and 
exercise civil and criminal jurisdiction within its territory. The 
right of the towns to continue their league, and renew it as often 
as they pleased, was further declared and confirmed by way of 
securing to them the performance of the articles stipulated. On 
the other hand, the rights reserved to the crown were more nominal 
than substantial. The consuls chosen by the people were to re- 
ceive, but without any appointment, investiture from the imperial 
legate, unless in towns in which the bishop or count had been 
used to give it; and each town was to swear fealty once in ten 



CH. XIX.] TREATY OF CONSTANCE VENICE. 259 

years, to defend the imperial rights against towns not belonging 
to the league ; and, on the emperor's progress through Italy, to 
provide forage and market for him, and repair the roads and 
bridges. The only interference of any moment with the municipal 
governments was ihe appointment in each city of a judge of ap- 
peal for all causes of a certain amount (about sixty pounds of our 
money) ; but he was sworn to decide according to the local laws 
and customs, and could not postpone the final decision of any 
case beyond two months. 

In this treaty, as we have already seen (Part I., Chap, xix.), 
were comprehended on the side of the league, Milan, Mantua, 
Verona, Bologna, and thirteen other great towns ; on the imperial 
side, Pa via, Genoa, and six others. Ferara had the option of 
joining within a limited time. Imola and six others were excluded. 
Venice had joined in some of the military operations, having taken 
part in the league formed by Verona, Vicenza, Padua, and Treviso 
in 1164, but had never been considered as comprised in the great 
confederacy, never having submitted at any time to the imperial 
authority. Accordingly she would not, by joining in the peace of 
Constance, give any colour to a claim which she had always suc- 
cessfully resisted. While the other towns had been engaged some- 
times in war wdth one another, sometimes in contests with the 
emperor and ihe Roman see, she had risen to a far greater im- 
portance than any of them, and at an earlier period. Never 
having been subdued by the northern barbarians, she claimed to 
deduce her origin from the ancient state of Rome. Her history 
and constitution are therefore peculiarly deserving of attention. 
Of all the municipalities she was the most powerful, and her go- 
vernment was of far longer duration than any other in Europe, 
her state having grown up to importance at a much earlier period. 
This subject, therefore, may conveniently be considered before we 
examine this commonwealth, which on the mainland of Italy 
arose out of the feudal kingdoms. 



s 2 



260 [ch. xx. 



CHAPTER XX. 



GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. 



Origin of Venice — Insular Federacy — Anarchy — Doge created — Venice founded — 
Conquests — Parties — Doge's power restricted — Pregadi — Aristocracy founded — 
Grand Council — Council of Ten — Inquisitors — Spies — Lion's Mouth — Committee 
of Puhlic Safety. 

The Venetians (Veneti ov Heneti), inhabiting the north-eastern 
corner of the Italian peninsula, were very late brought under sub- 
jection to the Roman republic. It was not till the great victory of 
Marius over the Cimbri and Teutones that their territory was re- 
duced into the condition of a Roman province. It followed the 
fall of the other provinces during the struggle of the factions which 
tore first the commonwealth and afterwards the empire in pieces, 
sometimes falling to the share of one party or chief, and some- 
times of another, and occasionally partitioned between contending 
claimants. The barbarians afterwards ravaged the continental 
portion of it ; but" the inhabitants both of the country and of Padua, 
Verona, Vicenza, and the other towns, found a refuge in the islands, 
which were never subdued by any of the northern invaders. In 
those fastnesses the proprietors of the continental territory re- 
mained after the retreat of Attila in the year 450; but the pea- 
santry returned to the mainland and resumed their occupation, 
the owners of the soil continuing to inhabit the islands. Here 
they established a kind of government formed somewhat accord- 
ing to the model of the Roman, to which they had so long been 
accustomed. Each island chose its chief, called a tribune, whose 
principal office was the administration of justice ; but who re- 
ceived instructions for the guidance of his proceedings from the 
general assembly, or comitia of the inhabitants. Occasionally the 
tribunes of the different islands met to confer upon matters of com- 
mon interest, and their decisions bound the whole of this kind of 
federal body, or insular confederacy. 



CH. XX.] APPOINTMENT OF DOGE. 261 

It should seem that their insular position, convenient for com- 
merce, and their natural habits derived from thence, giving them 
the command of the coasting trade and the traffic up the rivers of 
the mainland, their numbers and power had soon increased to a 
considerable pitch; for early in the sixth century they carried on 
a successful war with the Sclavonians se tied on the north-eastern 
parts of the Adriatic ; and in the year 527 they overran and seized 
upon Dalmatia. The Lombard invasion, in the latter part of the 
century, drove more of the Venetians into the islands, and the go- 
vernment being feeble, the seventh century was spent in constant 
quarrels of the different islands and their tribunes among them- 
selves ; so that the Lombards by land and the Sclavonians by sea, 
taking advantage of these fatal dissensions, harassed the republic, 
and were on the point of effecting its destruction, when a general 
assembly, held in 697, resolved upon a measure necessary to save 
the independence of the state and to extinguish the seditions which 
were working its ruin. This was the appointment of a magistrate 
invested with sufficient authority, and holding his office for life. 
They gave him the title of doge, or duke : he was to have the 
command of the forces, and the power of appointing all offices civil 
and military, and to exercise the prerogative of making peace and 
war. In other respects he w T as to be under the control of the ge- 
neral assembly. This change of government appears to have an- 
swered the purpose of those who proposed it; for Paolo Anafesti, 
the first doge, repelled all the aggressions which had threatened 
the republic, obtained the acknowledgment of its independence 
from the Lombard kings, and quelled all the seditions which had 
disturbed the public peace. 

Attempts were afterwards made by the Carlovingian princes to 
subdue the Venetians, but their only result was causing the seat 
of government to be transferred, in the year 800, to the island 
called Rialto, on which, and sixty neighbouring islets, the city 
of Venice was built. While it was increasing in commerce and 
wealth, the maritime towns of Istria and Dalmatia obtained from 
the Greek empire, to which they belonged, the privilege of arming 
for their defence against the barbarians, and of choosing magis- 
trates for their government. But the piracies of the barbarians 
kept them in such alarm, that they formed a defensive league, 
and at the end of the tenth century placed themselves under the 
protection of Venice, which, partly by intrigue and partly by force, 



262 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [CH. XX. 

succeeded in reducing them io subjection. They became provinces 
governed by Venetian nobles, that is, having justice administered 
to them and their forces commanded in the name of the republic 
by those nobles, who bore the title of podestas, and the doge 
assumed the title of Duke of Venice and Dalmatia. 

The eleventh century was wasted in factious contests between 
the leading noble families, of whom the Morosini and Caloprini 
were the chief; but whether these were cant names assumed by 
the families as the leaders of the parties, or taken by the parties 
from families so called, seems to be uncertain. The force of the 
republic was so weakened, and her councils so kept in a state of 
inaction, by these party broils, that no extension of her power was 
effected, nor was an adequate progress made in her internal im- 
provement. But the part which her traders were enabled to take in 
the crusades greatly extended her commerc during the next cen- 
tury, and her military co-operation in Asia obtained for her not 
only valuable mercantile privileges in the kingdom of Jerusalem, 
but the power of planting Venetian settlements there, to be governed 
by their own laws and their own magistrates. The Venetians at 
the same time made an easy prey of several of the Greek islands 
now that the Eastern empire was crumbling to pieces, and they 
were enabled to extend their footing in Dalmatia with the same 
facility and for the same reason. 

These conquests tended materially to increase the power of the 
doge, and the people, headed by the nobles, became alarmed for 
their liberties. During four centuries no check was effectually 
interposed to restrain his prerogative. A. sedition had been raised 
by the tyrannical conduct of the third doge, who was put to death ; 
and for five years magistrates were elected under the title of mas- 
ter of the forces (maestro della rnilizid), but this plan was aban- 
doned in consequence of their misconduct, and the office of doge was 
restored with all its former powers. Nor was any permanent change 
in those powers effected, how frequently soever the tyranny of the 
doges occasioned revolts and led to their violent deaths, or their 
depositions, with the punishment of having their eyes put out, a 
cruelty which the Venetians imported from the East during their 
conquests in the Levant. During the first century after the office 
was created, ten persons enjoyed it, and of these six were killed or 
deposed ; but no check had been devised upon their prerogative, 
except the appointment during one short reign of two tribunes. 



CH. XX.] RESTRICTIONS OF DOGE'S POWER. 263 

whom the doge was to consult before undertaking any measure of 
importance. But this institution had no permanent duration, and 
the doges went on as before, extending their power with the in- 
crease of patronage and influence which the newly-acquired domi- 
nions of the republic gave them, and they were frequently suffered 
to associate their sons with themselves in the office, and thus to 
make it for a generation or two hereditary in their families. Se- 
ditions as before occasionally broke out ; depositions and assassi- 
nations of doges took place, though less frequently ; but no steps 
were taken to limit the ducal power until the year 1030, when the 
dethronement of a doge gave the nobles and the people an oppor- 
tunity of at length imposing restraints upon the authority of the 
chief magistrate, before that time only liable to the same control 
from revolt and personal violence, which in the Russian monarchy 
is still the only check upon the autocrat's prerogative. But in that 
year an important change was effected, which for the first time 
restricted the doge's power. The former plan of two councillors 
was revived, and their consent made indispensable to all the doge's 
acts ; the joining of the son with the father in the office was strictly 
prohibited ; and upon occasions of importance the doge was fur- 
ther bound to request the attendance of the chief citizens at a 
council, for the purpose of deliberation and advice. The citizens 
thus requested were from thence called pregadi, and though the 
doge had the choice of them, as there was a general agreement 
in opinion and interest among the nobles, and as the people were 
united with them in all questions relating to the doge's power 
and the means of resisting it, the power of choosing made little 
difference, and this council afforded a substantial protection to 
the community. It was the origin of the most ancient of the 
Venetian councils. 

During a century and a half after this change the combined 
influence of the nobles and the people introduced a still more im- 
portant alteration in the government, the foundation of the aristo- 
cratical constitution which soon supplanted the ducal monarchy, 
and continued for above six hundred years to occupy the attention 
of political reasoners. In 1173 an expedition against Constan- 
tinople, under the Doge Vitale Michieli, had signally failed, 
partly through his feeble councils, but chiefly from the ravages of 
the plague, which the remains of the fleet brought back to Venice, 
and occasioned the laying waste of the city. A revolt, the assas- 



264 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [OH. XX. 

si nation of the doge, a six months' interregnum, were the conse- 
quences of these errors and calamities; but those six months 
were employed in framing a new constitution upon a republican 
model. 

The foundation of the whole was a grand council of four hun- 
dred and eighty members, in whom was vested exclusively all the 
powers not held by the doge, and who were also to share with him 
all the sovereignty which he possessed. The members were an- 
nually chosen, not by the nobility at large or by the people at 
large, but by twelve tribunes appointed yearly, two for each of 
the six quarters into which the city was divided, each tribune 
choosing forty councillors. It never seems to have been doubted 
that the choice would be confined to the noble houses; but there 
was a restriction which prevented the tribunes from taking more 
than four from any one family. The first tribunes appear to 
have been chosen by the people of each quarter, and for about 
thirty years there were remains of this popular election. But the 
council had the absolute nomination of all other offices, and its 
members soon usurped the power of rejecting whatever names 
were presented as their successors, thus rendering the annual 
election a mere form, and retaining the places of councillor 
almost entirely in the same hands. The council had thus almost 
come to be permanently hereditary in fact long before it was made 
so by law. This step was taken a century and a quarter after 
the creation of the council, and it was taken in consequence of an 
attempt made by the people to regain their share in the election 
of the doge. The attempt failed by the cowardice of Tiepolo, 
whom they chose, and who fled before the steady determination 
of the grand council. They allowed the popular ferment to sub- 
side by delaying the election for a few days after Tiepolo's flight, 
and then chose Gradenico, who seconded the efforts of the aris- 
tocratic party; and in 1297 it was declared by law that none 
should be excluded at the annual election but those who had 
done something to render them unworthy of a seat ; that the grand 
council of forty (the quarantie) should decide upon the exclusion, 
and that whoever had twelve votes of the forty should be retained 
in his place. It was further provided that three electors should 
be anmrally appointed by the council to form lists of citizens 
worthy of being added to the council, the number to be fixed 
yearly by the doge and senate, and that whoever of the list had 



CH. XX.] ARISTOCRACY OLIGARCHY. 265 

twelve votes of the forty should be elected. This provision was 

designed to flatter the people, to keep them quiet under the 

chancre now making in the constitution, and to conceal the transi- 
ts © 

tion which was making, at least in the legal frame, and which 
in practice had been made already, from a popular to an aristo- 
cratic government. But next year a new law was introduced 
which completed the establishment of the aristocracy. It was 
provided that those only should be elected who had previously 
been of the council or were descended from ancestors who had 
belonged to it. Thus an hereditary aristocracy was finally esta- 
blished. If no further change had taken place it was an oligarchy, 
not a pure aristocracy, for the supreme power was confined to a 
certain number of patrician families. 

But it has always been found more difficult to undermine the 
rights of the people, and by a succession of subtle devices to de- 
prive them of power, than to deceive the patrician body and endow 
a portion of them with the supreme authority to the exclusion of 
the rest. An abortive attempt in 1299, made by some of the 
plebeians to rescind by force the law of the preceding year and 
reopen the door of the council, to their order, was succeeded ten 
years after by a much more formidable conspiracy of the excluded 
nobles, whom some of the most distinguished members of the 
council and a still greater number of plebeians joined ; and they 
were headed by a brother of Tiepolo, who had formerly been the 
object of the popular choice. The plot failed, and some of the 
ringleaders were put to death ; but it was so nearly succeeding, 
and it had so powerful a support, that the greater number even 
of its chiefs were allowed to leave the city in safety, and two ma- 
terial changes were made in the constitution, with the view of 
preventing the recurrence of a similar danger. The one of these 
was a law made in 1315, but completed in 1319, abolishing the 
three electors, and entitling every person who had either sat in 
the council, or was of a noble family, to become a member with- 
out any election, further than an examination of his qualification. 
This finally established the aristocratic constitution. The other 
change was the appointment of the celebrated Council of Ten, 
and this was effected the same year with the failure of Tiepolo's 
conspiracy, while the alarm was at its height which that event 
had occasioned among the whole patrician body. This council 
was at, first named only for two months, with a commission to 



26f> GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [CII. XX. 

watch the movements of the banished conspirators, and to prevent 
any renewal of their attempts. It was, in the strictest sense of 
the word, a dictatorship ; Cor it was vested with absolute power to 
arresl and punish summarily any nobles suspected of treason or 
felony; to dispose of the public treasure, and generally to exercise 
all the powers of the grand council for the safety of the state. 
But armed with such authority, it became immediately a perma- 
nent body. At first it was continued for three years, with a pro- 
vision that each member shoidd be re-elected or excluded at the 
end of four months ; afterwards it was adopted as an integral 
portion of the government, and, next to the grand council, it was 
the most important branch of the constitution. Indeed it may be 
regarded as having superseded the grand council itself, but for 
the control retained over it by that body continuing to choose it 
for short periods of time. 

Although called the Council of Ten, it consisted of seventeen 
members, all taken from the grand council and chosen by it ; ten, 
called the bl; ck {neri), from their official robes, and chosen at 
four meetings in the months of August and September — six, 
called the red (rossi), for the like reason, and chosen every four 
months, three at a time ; consequently the ten held their office for 
a year, and the six for eight months. The doge alone held his 
place in it for life, and acted as president. The whole members 
of the grand council were eligible, with one exception ; two per- 
sons of the same family, or even of the same name, could not be 
chosen ; an example of the extreme jealousy of each other which 
prevails among all the members of an aristocracy, as we have 
already had occasion to observe (Pt. n. Chap. v.). The proceed- 
ings of the Ten were all secret ; the accused was not confronted 
with the witnesses; he did not even know their names; the 
punishment of death was inflicted sometimes in public, sometimes 
secretly ; and then the body of the criminal was exhibited, or he 
was only announced as having been put to death. The members 
were not responsible for their conduct either individually or as a 
body, and from their sentences there lay no appeal. Though in 
general they acted arbitrarily and without any regard to law, 
they occasionally laid down rules for their guidance when they 
were apprehensive that they might be induced to review their 
decisions. In that case they sometimes fixed a time within which 
their sentence should not be changed, or determined the number 



CH. XX.] COUNCIL OF TEN INQUISITORS. 267 

of voices which must concur to alter it. Like all the Italian 
tribunals, it used the torture both to the party accused and the 
witnesses. As if the powers of this council were not sufficient to 
secure a vigorous administration, there were three of its members 
who in succession held for three months the office of inquisitors ; 
they could order the instant execution of any citizen not noble, 
and inflict upon the nobles themselves any punishment short of 
death : to inflict capital punishment upon a noble required the 
vote of the council at large, and the presence of fourteen mem- 
bers. As might be expected, the existence of such a tribunal 
led almost from its creation to the employment of spies in an 
abundance, and with a reliance upon their information and in- 
ventions, unknown to any other system. It was not even necessary 
that the secret informer should be seen by the council or inqui- 
sition. Boxes (called Lions' Mouths from their form) were placed 
in different parts of the city, into which any one might fling his 
denunciations. The keys of these boxes were intrusted to the 
inquisitors. The punishments ordered by the inquisitors were 
always inflicted secretly in the prisons. 

The Council of Ten, as might easily be foreseen, speedily usurped 
the whole authority and power of the government ; but, what 
could not have been expected, it never made any attempt what- 
ever to continue its existence and erect itself into a body inde- 
pendent of the grand council. On the contrary, when the grand 
council refused to re-elect it, which it might at any time do effec- 
tually by witholding the number of votes necessary to constitute 
an absolute majority,* the Council of Ten submitted, and a kind 
of interregnum took place, until the grand council thought proper 
to revive the governing body. This happened for the first time 
in the year 1580, and the last instance of the kind was in 1761, 
when the jurisdiction of the Ten was confined to criminal cases, 
and their power in other respects somewhat limited. 

With the exception of their never having continued their own 
authority, the relation of the Council of Ten to the grand council 
closely resembled that of the Committee of Public Safety to the 
National Convention in the French republic ; and it secured to the 
state many of the advantages which France derived from that too 
celebrated committee. All plots, all attempts to plot against the 

* A majority of the whole members of the Grand Council was required for the elec- 
tion of each of the Council of Ten. 



268 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [dl. XX. 

government were rendered impracticable by a system of vigilance, 
jealousy, spycrai't, sudden arrest, and summary punishment by 
which, while it made every man suspect his neighbour, besetting 
and surrounding with peril all the common intercourse ofsocial life, 
stilling the seditious purpose before it could find vent in words — 
an extraordinary degree of vigour was imparted to the adminis- 
tration of affairs both civil and military, foreign and domestic. 
The continuance of such a constitution as the Venetian for so 
many centuries can only be explained by the constant watchful- 
ness of this dictatorial and inquisitorial body, the terror which its 
proceedings inspired, and the mutual distrust which they sowed 
universally among the citizens. It must, however, be added, that 
the body of the people, though excluded from all share in the govern- 
ment, felt this tyranny far less than the privileged classes ; and that 
the burthen of maintaining the public expenditure fell as lightly 
as possible upon the inhabitants of the city, the foreign dominions 
fully defraying it in all ordinary times. The aristocracy was po- 
pular at Venice ; the government was at all times beloved by the 
people. It pressed light upon them in every way; its despotic 
powers were hardly ever exercised but upon the privileged classes; 
and it was both successful in keeping the peace at home and in 
raising the name and extending the commerce of the people 
abroad. 



ch. xxi.] 269 



CHAPTER XXI. 

GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. 

(Continued.) 



Doge — Complicated election — Two objects kept in view — Neither attained — Examina- 
tion of the process — First object to prevent faction — Second object to prevent corrup- 
tion — Jealous nature of Aristocracy — Limited power of the Doge — Ducal Oath — 
Officers to watch and punish the Doge — Avogadors — Doge's prerogative — Senate or 

Pregadi — Collegio — Judicial power — Quarantia — Offices filled by Commoners 

Procurators of St. Mark — Savii — Provincial offices — Government of Candia. 

When we have examined the structure of the Grand Council, and 
its committee the Council of Ten, we have in fact examined the 
whole effective portion of the Venetian government; the real power 
resided in those bodies, and all the other authorities of the state 
were subordinate. In considering these, therefore, we are rather 
about to view the arrangements, the details, by which the Grand 
Council and Council of Ten carried on the government, than to 
contemplate any other power in the state which could be said to 
have a substantive existence. It is, however, necessary to examine 
those nominal authorities, because they have at all times attracted 
the regards of political reasoners, and also because their structure 
is calculated further to illustrate the jealous character of the aris- 
tocratic system and the refinements of Italian polity. 

The first of the constituted authorities that claims our attention 
is the doge, once the master of the state, but ever since the creation 
of the grand council in 1173, an officer of rank only, with no real 
pow r er and very little influence of any kind. The choice of the 
doge was, as we have seen, at first entrusted, for once only, to a 
committee of eleven ; soon afterwards the Grand Council assumed 
it permanently, appointing first twenty-four, and afterwards forty 
of its members, from whom eleven electors were chosen by lot. 
But in 1249 a new and very complicated manner of exercising 
this elective power was devised, which continued to be practised 
as long as the republic lasted, that is, till the year 1798. First 



270 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [CH. XXI. 

of all, thirty of the council were drawn by lot, and these again 
were reduced by lot to nine, who selected, by a majority of seven 
at least of their number, forty of the council, and those were by 
lot reduced to twelve. These twelve elected twenty-five of the 
council, which were reduced by lot to nine, and the nine selected 
forty-five, of whom eleven drawn by lot selected forty-one of the 
council to be electors of the doge. A majority of twenty -five of 
these electors was required to join in choosing the doge. 

The prevailing view in this combination of choice and chance 
must have been twofold — to prevent the combination of partisans 
and thus neutralize or weaken party influence ; and to prevent the 
knowledge of the parties who should elect, and thus frustrate or 
obstruct the exercise of bribery or other undue influence. The 
first of these objects could not be at all secured by the contrivance ; 
the second could only be most imperfectly attained. 

1. In order to try its effect upon party, we must suppose 
two or more factions to divide the great council ; suppose, too, an 
aristocratic, which for shortness we shall call the Whigs, and a 
monarchical, the Tories, and first suppose them unequal in the pro- 
portion of two to one. The chances are that the first lot gives 
twenty Whigs to ten Tories, and the second six Whigs to three 
Tories. As seven must then concur to choose the forty, it is certain 
that the minority may make terms; but nothing can be so impro- 
bable as that they should obtain, by holding out, any proportion of 
the forty which could affect usefully for their purpose the next or 
fourth operation, the lot reducing the forty to twelve ; for unless 
they get so many of the forty as to give them a fair chance of 
having seven out of the twelve, they do nothing, a bare majority of 
the twelve being enough to choose the twenty- five by the fifth 
operation. The twenty-five, then, will be all Whigs, and so will 
of course the nine to which they are reduced by lot. These, by 
the seventh operation, will choose eleven Whigs, whom the lot re- 
ducing to eight, these eight will choose forty-one, all Whigs, twenty- 
five of whom will, therefore, by the tenth and last operation, choose 
a Whig doge. In fact, the whole result is certain, notwithstand- 
ing the complication, after the two first lots ; and the complication 
then becomes useless. These two lots make it a chance who will 
have the choice of doge, and make it possible that the minority 
should choose him — make it even possible, though not likely, that, 






CH. XX.] COMPLEX ELECTION OF DOGE. 271 

if the council is divided so as to have four Whigs for one Tory, the 
small Tory minority should choose him. If by lot, seven Tories 
and two Whigs are found among the nine, this is inevitable. Tt 
is the result of the chance which presides over the first operation, 
and all the subsequent complication cannot counteract it. If there 
is any advantage in a scheme which makes it possible for a small 
minority to bind the whole body, this is secured, but it is secured 
by the lot, and not by the combination of lot and selection. — 
Again, if parties are very nearly balanced, the lot may give one 
the free choice ; but it may also give a narrow majority of the 
nine ; in which case the Tories might obtain a large minority of 
the forty. But this would be wholly unavailing unless the next 
lot gave them a majority of the twelve, because a bare majority of 
these choose the twenty-five. Therefore the only effect of the 
complication here is to introduce a second chance, which the ma- 
jority of five to four in the nine would probably struggle to make 
a small chance by not allowing any considerable number of Tories 
to be of the forty. It is quite clear that in every possible case, 
and whatever division w 7 e suppose to exist in the council, there is 
an end of all doubt and an end of the whole operation as soon as 
the twelve are chosen. For a bare majority of these twelve de- 
cides the election, and the remaining five operations are absolutely 
thrown away. Thus the only possible effect of the contrivance in 
preventing the combinations of partisans is the introduction of 
chance by drawing lots for one of the electing bodies. As the 
absurdity of choosing the doge by lot would have been too glaring, 
the lot is only applied to the choice of electors. But as far as it 
is intended to prevent faction from interfering, the choice of the 
doge depends upon chance, that is, the lot decides from what 
party he shall be taken. The complication of the process mani- 
festly has no effect at all. Nor can the effect even of the lot very 
materially obstruct the operations of party ; the factions will 
always be represented in the thirty first drawn by lot, and all 
their intrigues will be practised, only within that narrow range, 
instead of having the whole council for their field. The history 
of election committees in the English House of Commons proves 
how impossible it is to exclude party from a much smaller number 
of persons chosen by lot. 

2. It may be admitted that the lot threw some impediment in 



272 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [CH. XXI. 

the way of corruption and intimidation, preventing those undue 
influences from being used towards the greater number of the 
council. When, however, the thirty were once drawn and then 
reduced to nine, it is not easy to see how those nine should be 
exempt From the arts of the candidates. Even if they were to 
vote secretly, the bargain might be made by the candidate or his 
party, that the bribe should only be paid if earned, that is, upon 
the final election taking place. If we suppose seven of the nine to 
be thus bought, it is clear that they could secure the event by 
choosing as many of the forty as made it certain a majority of the 
twelve should be friendly, and then the election was certain, 
always supposing, as we have done throughout, that there were a 
sufficient number of sure voters in the council itself; and we shall 
presently see that numbers and the dependent circumstances of 
most of its members after the earlier times of the constitution, 
always secured the existence of many voters ready to take any 
part. The obstruction given to bribery and intimidation, be it 
greater or less, was plainly confined to the first operation of the 
lot. It is not possible to understand how the combination of 
choice and lot, in a word, how all the subsequent operations, 
could increase the difficulty of bribing ; but it is manifest that the 
necessity which the contrivance created of finding voters at each 
stage of its operation, in the Grand Council, extended the field of 
corruption. Each time that any new voters were to be selected, 
as the twenty-five, the forty, the forty-one, it became necessary 
to corrupt or intimidate those who were thus chosen ; and there 
would have been much Jess of those undue practices required, had 
the operation been confined to a choice of the doge by the f.rst 
thirty upon whom the lot had fallen. 

In one respect it, may, perhaps, be supposed that the compli- 
cated contrivance has a beneficial tendency ; the repeated choice, 
and in two instances by greater numbers than the bare majority, 
may be conceived to secure fuller deliberation, and to give the 
minority some influence, some power of eifecting a compromise. 
But, then, the admixture of chance by the several times the lot is 
interposed can have no effect, except to disturb the process of 
selection; and a single choice, by a defined majority, would pro- 
bably give as great a security against rash election, and as great 
a probability of a middle course being taken, as all the five selec- 






CH. XXI.] RESTRICTIONS UPON THE DOGE. 273 

tions of the system. The door which the lot opens for a minority 
of the electors by possibility determining the result is of itself a 
decisive argument against it, if there were no other. 

We may, therefore, confidently affirm that this contrivance, 
which has so often been vaunted as the perfection of skill, as a 
refinement in political wisdom only to be expected from the subtle 
genius and long and various experience of Italian statesmen, is 
wholly undeserving the praise lavished upon it. There can be 
as little doubt, that it abundantly proves the refining nature of 
these politicians, and illustrates the morbid jealousy, the ever- 
watchful suspicions of aristocratic rulers, — no sooner bestowing 
any power than they are alarmed lest it be used against them, 
— compelled to vest authority and discretion in some hands, and 
then fettering its exercise by checks, and not unfrequently seeking 
security against those checks themselves. 

The same spirit was displayed in the control provided for the 
exercise of the doge's authority, which presided over the nomina- 
tion to the office. He was bound in all things by the advice of 
the six councillors, called the red (?-o$si), who formed with him 
the signoria, or little executive council. Originally he had the 
choice of his councillors, the pregadi, as we have seen ; but T about 
half a century after the revolution in the year 1229, the choice 
of the pregadi was vested in the great council; and, their number 
being increased to sixty, they were formed into a Senate, six coun- 
cillors having ever since the revolution been assigned to the doge, 
who were chosen by the Grand Council, and only chosen for eight 
months, four going out every four months, so as to be con- 
stantly under the superintendence and control of the council. 
These six formed, also, as we have seen, part of the Council of 
Ten. Not only was the doge bound to follow the advice in all 
things of these six delegates and representatives of the great 
council, but he could not leave Venice without the Great Council's 
permission, receive foreign ministers or open despatches ; except in 
presence of the Little Council, nor even have his effigy upon the 
coin, though it bore his name. 

It might have been supposed that the doge's authority w r as 
sufficiently controlled by this arrangement; but this did not suf- 
fice. Before the revolution of 1173, and while the doge was a 
real monarch, the principal checks upon his power were the pro- 
mises which he made in the oath which he took at his election, 

PART II. T 



274 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [CH. XXI. 

and which received alterations and additions almost, each time the 
office was vacant. These promises were continued after the revo- 
lution, and even after the ducal power became a mere shadow. In 
1240 they were formed into a kind of code, in one hundred and 
four chapters, and this code was continued during the rest of the 
thirteenth century. But the oath continued ever after to be taken, 
and it was, in fact, a renunciation of all power and prerogative. It 
bound the doge to execute the decrees of all the councils, to hold 
no correspondence with foreign powers, not to receive their ambas- 
sadors, or open their despatches, except in the presence of the little 
council, the six ; not even to open the letters of any of his subjects, 
but in the presence of one of the six ; neither to acquire nor to hold 
any property out of the Venetian territories ; and to permit none 
of his relations to hold any office whatever for his benefit, either 
within the territory or without. Adding insult to tyranny, this 
oath further bound him never to make any attempt at increasing 
his power, nor ever suffer any citizen to kneel before him or kiss 
his hand. At the same time with the formation of the senate 
(1229) five magistrates were created for the express purpose of 
receiving this oath at each vacancy of the doge's office, and of 
making, under the great council's direction, such additions as 
might seem necessary for causing it to be belter observed. They 
were called correctors of the ducal oath {correttori della promts- 
sione dacale), and three other magistrates were also created, called 
inquisitors of the late doge (inquisitor i del doge defunto). Their 
office was to examine minutely the conduct of the late doge, and, 
comparing it with the laws and with his oath, not only to con- 
demn his memory, but to fine his heirs in case he was found to 
have violated either. 

But the constitution did not trust, to the effect of this posthumous 
inquiry, or exempt the doge, any- more than his nominal subjects, 
from responsibility at all times. There were three magistrates ap- 
pointed for the express purpose of watching over all the laws, and 
restraining all violation of them, whether by the doge, or the 
nobility, or the people. These were termed avogadors of the 
community (avogadori delta commune), and they were authorized to 
bring the conduct of the doge at any time before the great council. 
All attempts at usurpation could thus be at once punished, by 
whomsoever made. In truth, the prerogative of the doge was reduced 
to little more than his rank and an inconsiderable patronage. The 



CH. xxi.] doge's prerogative. 275 

letters of credence to ambassadors and other similar commissions 
bore his name before the other authorities, though he was not 
allowed to sign or to seal them. The foreign despatches, which he 
was not allowed to open, were addressed to him. He presided in 
the councils, and had the right of proposing any measure without 
the previous assent of or communication with any other authority. 
The prebends of the Cathedral of St. Mark were all in his gift, as 
were the nominations to the knighthoods of the same order. His 
revenue was only 12,000 ducats, or 3500/., which seemed to 
render the exemption of his family from all sumptuary laws 
somewhat of a mockery, the more especially as neither his sons 
nor brothers could fill any place of importance, nor were they 
allowed to receive from the pope ecclesiastical preferment, with 
the sole exception of the cardinal's hat. 

Thus it might most truly be said, in the words of the old proverb 
respecting this unfortunate functionary, that he was a king in his 
robes, a captive in the city, a private person out of it (rex in pur- 
pura, in urbe captivus, extra urhem privatus). The saying adds 
that he was (< senator in curia." He presided in the pregadi, 
which, after 1229, became a senate. It very easily obtained the 
superintendence of all matters relating to trade and to the foreign 
affairs of the republic, and prepared all measures for the delibera- 
tion of the great council. But it was composed of sixty elected by 
that council, and as, in the course of time, it became customary 
for the Council of Ten, all the ministers, and the criminal council 
(quarantid) , also to attend it, the consequence was that it really 
contained all the important members of the great council, and 
the most material deliberations of the government were conducted 
by it : in fact, it represented the great council. Thus in the pre- 
gadi resolutions were taken for making peace or declaring war, 
choosing councillors, appointing ambassadors, regulating trade, 
directing expenditure, imposing taxes. Its members in later limes 
were about three hundred ; but the substantial power over its 
deliberations was of course exercised by the Council of Ten. 

The body next in importance to the pregadi was the college 
(collegio), of which the signoria, or the doge, and his six coun- 
cillors formed the principal members, though there were added 
about eighteen others, being the chiefs of the quarantia and the 
ministers of different departments. In the College all foreign 
ambassadors were received, and the despatches and the petitions 

t2 



276 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [CH. XXI. 

addressed to the government from any quarter were there read. 
It was understood to meet every morning. 

The judicial power was, very early after the revolution of 1173, 
taken from the doge. The criminal jurisdiction was in 1 179 vested 
in a council of forty, called the quarantia, or the old criminal 
council, to distinguish it from two others, also composed of forty 
each, and exercising criminal jurisdiction. All these bodies were 
chosen by, and out of, the great council ; their secretaries, as those 
of all the councils, might be commoners, and excepting the office 
of chancellor, the dignity of which was greater than its authority, 
these were the only places open to the commons at large. The 
chancellor was generally chosen from among the secretaries, and 
almost always a commoner. The old quarantia was divided into 
three departments, the chiefs of each of which sat in the college. 

The office most in request at Venice, after that of doge, was the 
place of Procurator of St. Mark ; these procurators were nine in 
number, and held their places for life. They had jurisdiction over 
charitable foundations, causes testamentary and tutorial, and kept 
the archives of the state ; they had also the power of protecting 
debtors from the extreme rigour of the law in favour of creditors. 
Their functions, and the tenure of their office, gave them con- 
siderable weight, and the doge was generally chosen from their 
body. 

Of the councillors, or ministers of different departments, some 
had, and others had not, seats in the college. The five ministers 
of the Terra Firma provinces (savii di terra firmd) and the five 
ministers of marine (savii delle ordini) had seats in that body. 
But by far the most important offices under the republic were 
those of the provinces. In these the governors and judges were 
at all times Venetian nobles, appointed, and appointed only for a 
time, by the government — that is, by the ruling powers in the 
great council ; and three of them, the Morea, Candia, and 
Cyprus, were always termed subject kingdoms. The example of 
Candia will serve for the others also. During the four centuries 
that this fine island belonged to the republic, its affairs were ad- 
ministered by a chief governor (procurator-general), with four 
subgovernors (proveditori) under him, for the four provinces into 
which the island was divided. Judges (rettori) were likewise 
sent from Venice, and each of them was assisted by two coun- 
cillors, natives of the island. • The administration of the towns was 



CH. XXI ] GOVERNMENT OF CANDIA. 277 

in the hands of the Candiotes, who formed the municipal councils. 
The Candiote nobles had feudal privileges ; but they were bound 
to have a certain number of militia among their dependents ready 
for the public service. This was reckoned at 60,000; so that 
the numbers of the people must have been then much greater 
than they are now; for they are at present only estimated at 
300,000. The wars with the Turks for the possession of Candia, 
in the latter part of the seventeenth century, are supposed to have 
cost the republic twenty-five millions of ducats. 



278 [ch. xxii. 



CHAPTER XXII. 

GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. 
{Concluded.') 



Great vigour of the Government — Comparison of dominions with those of England — 
With those of Rome — Venetian tyranny — Examples: Carrara; Carmagnola ; 
Foscari — Firmness and vigour — Military policy— Equalizing laws — Merits of the 
system — Provincial Government — Oligarchy substantially established — Comparison 
with English Government — Scottish Parliament — Meanness and pride of Venetian 
Nobles — Improvements in modern times. 

We have now examined the details of this singular constitution, 
as far as it is at all necessary for understanding in what manner, 
and according to what arrangements, the sovereign power re- 
siding in the Great Council, and its committee, the Council of 
Ten, was exercised in administering the government. But we 
must never lose sight of the real and efficient ruler, the Council 
of Ten ; for that was at once the mainspring and the regulator 
of the whole machine. 

The Council of Ten, and the system which it administered, 
may be regarded as the natural and genuine growth of the aris- 
tocratic scheme. A government thus constituted must, as we 
have before seen, be subject to constant apprehension from two 
different quarters, the dislike or restlessness of the people who 
are excluded from power ; and the ambition, sometimes of the 
more powerful of the privileged class, sometimes of the others 
who are jealous of influence unequally distributed. Party being 
the constant attendant of aristocracy, unless it can find a vent, 
as in the representative system, it will work by intrigue and 
conspiracy. The constant alarms which this risk excites, and 
the constant desire to prevent any undue power being acquired 
by one or more of their own number, naturally gives rise to 
such jealous precautions as created and maintained the Council 



CH. XXII.] GREAT VIGOUR OF THE GOVERNMENT. 279 

of Ten. But it also in part owed its continuance to the necessity 
which every popular government whether aristocratic or demo- 
cratic, always finds inevitable, of supplying the natural want of 
unity and concentration in the executive power. The Roman 
aristocracy early resorted to an occasional dictatorship, and con- 
tinued its recourse to this expedient when gradually mixed up 
with democratic institutions, sometimes by appointing a dictator, 
sometimes by arming its ordinary magistrates with dictatorial 
powers. The Athenian democracy would, in all probability, 
have much longer preserved its preponderance in Greece, and 
its independence of a foreign power, if its executive administra- 
tion had been in firmer and steadier hands. The Spartan aris- 
tocracy, which was paralysed by the want of an executive, 
hardly ever undertook extensive operations, and generally failed 
when it did. But both the Spartan and Athenian governments 
had recourse to expedients for preventing revolution; the 
ostracism of Athens was dictated by jealousy of revolutionary 
attempts ; the impeachment for illegal legislation (ygoctpw Trxqa- 
vopcwv) was the fruit of similar alarms, and of the people's dis- 
trust of their own fitness for self-government. But in Venice 
alone was the public alarm, the conciousness that it required 
something to obviate the risk of conspiracy, and supply the 
natural defects of popular government, reduced to a system; in 
Venice alone was the dictatorial power made an integral part of 
the constitution, and the results of it are sufficiently remarkable. 
No government ever had so long a duration as the Venetian 
with so little of sudden and violent change, and so few shocks 
from attempted revolution ; nor is there any instance of foreign 
dominion being acquired, and an influence sustained so dispro- 
portioned to the natural resources of the state. England herself, 
supposing her to possess at will the whole of her East Indian 
as well as colonial empire, has a population of about one-fourth 
part of her remoter subjects, and a mass of wealth incomparably 
greater than that of all her dependencies together. But Venice, 
with a number of inhabitants which never reached 200,000, 
perhaps never exceeded 150,000, had between three and four 
millions of people subject to her, not only possessed herself, 
from the beginning of the fifteenth century, of her rich Italian 
provinces in the Terra Firma — Verona, Vicenza, Padua, — but 



280 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [CH. XXII 

had, from a much more early period, nearly all Dalmatia, had 
carried her arms by sea and land into the Eastern empire, taking 
its capital, Constantinople, and obtaining for her share two ninth 
parts of the remaining Latin empire — retained possession of the 
Morca for three centuries (from 1204 to 1492), and again took 
it from 1G84 to 1715 — held Cyprus for a century (from 1473 to 
1571), Candia for above lour centuries (from 1224 to 1669), the 
Ionian Islands for an equal period — and gave such uneasiness and 
alarm to other states, that a grand alliance was formed to reduce 
her power by no less important monarchies than France, Spain, 
Austria, and the see of Rome. The commercial wealth of this 
extraordinary commonwealth no doubt furnished the resources 
which enabled its government to work such wonders ; but the 
frame of that government, so well calculated for the councils of 
deep, unscrupulous policy, and for prompt and vigorous execu- 
tion, must be allowed its full share of the merit, if conquests 
can ever deserve admiration ,• and the extraordinary ability dis- 
played for so great a length of time by the Venetian statesmen 
who administered its powers has certainly no parallel in the 
history of any other nation. Ancient Rome could alone have 
furnished one, and that only if the circumstances had been 
materially different in which her conquests were made, and if, 
instead of having in only one instance met with an adversary 
equal in skill, she had, in all instances but one, been matched 
against nations as far advanced in civilization as herself. This 
was the case with Venice in all her wars, saving only those 
waged against the remains of the Latin empire. 

A system of polity which could thus unite lasting stability with 
extraordinary vigour, draw forth the resources of its subjects, in- 
crease them beyond what their nature seemed to permit, apply them 
with steady determination, and almost constant success ; which 
could train a succession of the ablest statesmen, while it fostered 
the enterprises of the richest merchants, and controlled the am- 
bition of the one and the influence of the other, so as to make 
both work as parts of the machine, without ever obstructing its 
operations, and render all men the mere instruments of the 
public aggrandisement, in which their individual importance 
was habitually merged, — presents no ordinary claims to our 
admiration. — e ' Has tantas virtutes ingentia vitia sequabant ; 



GH. XXII.] TYRANNY OF THE GOVERNMENT. 281 

inhumana crudelitas, perfidia plusquam Punica, nihil veri, nihil 
sancti, nullus deorum metus, nullum jusjurum, nulla relligio " 
(Liv. xxi. 4). — Nothing can be more profligate than the disre- 
gard of all principle, nothing more daring that the contempt of 
all engagements, nothing more heartless than the cold-blooded 
and calculating cruelty by which the republic was ever ready 
to compass her objects, prevent opposition or extinguish it, and 
occasionally to seek, like animal instinct, for the gratification of 
revengeful passions, — as like an individual she yielded to alarm, 
and to the excess of fury which fear alone engenders. An aris- 
tocracy in full and uncontrolled dominion, subject to the pas- 
sions of the multitude, but pursuing their gratification with the 
determination of an individual, yet exempt from his responsi- 
bility, and able to keep itself in countenance because of its 
numbers, could alone have been able to do the wicked things 
with which all authorities have charged the Venetian govern- 
ment : things of which some were murders under the mask of 
public executions, — others, though committed in public, had 
not even the doubtful palliation of that pretext, — and not a few, 
being perpetrated in secret, may have been no better than 
common assassinations. When all that the people were suffered 
to see or to know was the strangled corpse of some obscure 
person, with an inscription that he had been put to death in the 
night for treason, and when the whole particulars were veiled 
for ever after in a secrecy which if broken would have brought 
down the same fate on the councillor or the clerk, we can cer- 
tainly give no examples to illustrate what, if human nature were 
the same at Venice as elsewhere, must have been the inevitable 
abuse of powers so exercised. But enough remains on record 
of the more public transactions of the government to show how 
far men can go when they themselves form the public whose 
opinion alone they regard, and are subject to none of the 
personal responsibility which checks even the most absolute 
despots. 

The family of Carrara had been lords of Padua for nearly 
ninety years, and all Italy had produced no more gallant, ac- 
complished, or humane prince than Francis II. When, at the 
beginning of the fifteenth century, the Venetians made war upon 
him as part of their policy, then turned towards obtaining do- 
minions on the mainland, he resisted the attacks of their merce- 






282 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [CH. XXII. 

nary troops with a far inferior force, and after prodigies of 
valour and of fortitude, in the midst of famine and of a pesti- 
lence sucli as perhaps never ravaged any other city,* he and 
his two sons were overpowered, and were made prisoners by 
acts of the most shameless perfidy on the part of the Venetian 
government, his other two sons having been despatched to 
Florence. The prcgadi proceeded to try them, and it was 
expected they would have been banished to some distant 
fortress ; but the Council of Ten caused them all three to be 
strangled in prison, and this after they had been honoured with 
a solemn public reception suited to their rank, and placed on 
the same bench with the doge. The signoria (or executive 
council) then offered a reward of 40,000 florins (equal in value 
to 8000/. of our present money) to whoever would seize and 
bring to Venice alive either of the other two sons, and 3000/. 
for the assassination of either. It is honourable, perhaps, to 
the Italians of the age that none ever claimed the reward. One 
of them died a natural death : but, twenty years after the war 
had ceased, when all revenge would have been extinguished in 
the bosom of any single tyrant, the implacable Council of Ten, 
having taken the surviving brother in an attempt upon Padua, 
put him publicly to death. 

A few years before this, Carmagnola, the most skilful general 
of the age, after leaving the Milanese service, had been twice 
employed by the Venetian government, and had gained for it 
the most important victories, which, after adding Brescia and 
Bergami to their dominions, encouraged them to meditate the 
entire conquest of Lombardy. After a peace, to which this 
ambitious republic reluctantly submitted for three years, they 
again made war upon Milan, and their great captain proved no 
longer victorious, though their chief disaster was the loss of a 
fleet, with the command of which he had nothing to do. He 
was invited to attend the senate (pregadi), that the conditions 
of a negotiation for peace might be discussed. Received with 
the utmost respect, attended by a brilliant procession, he was 
placed in the seat of honour, and loaded with professions of 
esteem and admiration. The consultation on which his advice 
was desired lasted till a late hour, and he was pressed to let his 

* Some accounts say that 40,000 perished of it in Padua ; and none rate the num- 
ber lower than 28.000. 



CH. XXII.] CARMAGNOLA FOSCARI. 283 

suite retire for the night after the fatigues of their journey. 
No sooner was he left alone with the senators, than they ordered 
in their guards, who hurried him to prison and loaded him with 
irons. The pretext of this enormity was, that his late want of 
success had arisen from wilful neglect or treacherous disposi- 
tions. Next day he was put to the torture ; he suffered the 
more excruciating torment that he still had a wound open which 
he had received in the service of his savage executioners ; and 
the story ran that he had in his agony confessed the charge. 
What we know for certain is, that a few days afterwards he was 
publicly executed, with a gag in his mouth to prevent him from 
denying this imputation upon his memory. That such a body 
as the Committee of Public Safety, during the ferment of a revo- 
lutionary crisis, was capable of judicially murdering an unsuc- 
cessful general, and that the mob, of whom it was alternately 
the tyrant and the slave, were capable of ascribing any reverse 
of fortune to treachery, no one will think of denying ; nor would 
the infliction of torture have been spared at Paris, any more 
than it was at Venice, had such an atrocity formed part of the 
jurisprudence of the age ; and we may even admit that the 
gagging of the victim has not been without its parallel in the 
more recent scenes. But not even the tribunals of 1793 and 
1794, nor the wildest and most savage of the mobs to whom 
massacre then became familiar, were capable of the cold-blooded 
plot which the regular government of Yenice formed as an act 
of its ordinary administration, or of the consummate treachery 
with which the select body of its patricians all joined in carry- 
ing it on. A more signal proof cannot be imagined of the 
degree to which men banded in parties, and looking only to 
their own order, learn to lose the power of blushing as well as 
of feeling. 

Francis Foscari had been doge during the brilliant campaigns 
of Carmagnola, and. had by his councils been a strenuous pro- 
moter of the Lombard war, so long an especial favourite with the 
nation and its rulers. His popularity and an influence extraor- 
dinary in so crippled an office, but acquired by the talents, the 
courage, and the firmness which he had uniformly displayed, 
raised the jealousy of the senate and the Council of Ten, subjected 
him to an unremitting vigilance ; but nothing could be found in 
all his proceedings to justify a suspicion in a country where sus- 



284 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [OH. XXII. 

picion was fatal to its object. Of his four sons, one survived ; and 
against him, to the great joy of the council, a Florentine exile, 
settled at Venice, preferred in secret a charge of receiving some 
presents from one of the Viscontis, enemies of the republic. He 
was put to the torture ; under its extremities he made a confession ; 
and he was banished for life. His wretched father, now in his 
eighty-sixth year, and bent down by family afflictions, was desir- 
ous of having his office taken from him, his oath and the law pre- 
venting his resignation ; but the Council refused him this favour, 
and insisted on retaining him in a position which every day 
added to his sufferings. One of the inquisitors of state was assas- 
sinated. Upon the mere suspicion arising from the son's ser- 
vant having been seen in Venice, both he and his master were 
cruelly tortured ; but no confession was extorted. The real assas- 
sin on his death-bed confessed his crime ; but this could obtain 
no relaxation of the more severe exile to which Foscari had been 
condemned upon the suspicion now proved to be wholly ground- 
less. The torments he had suffered produced insanity ; he was 
suffered to revisit his family at Venice, but sent back to the place 
of his banishment the moment his reason returned. There he 
wrote a letter to the Duke of Milan and let it be seen, for the ex- 
press purpose of obtaining his recall to Venice in order to be tried 
for the offence. The inexorable Council recalled him, and when 
the cause of writing the letter was stated in his defence, they a third 
time ordered him to be tortured, in order to try if he would main- 
tain his story. He did so, was sent back to his exile, and as soon 
as he landed died of the agony he had endured. There being 
no longer any means of making the unhappy doge suffer through 
his family, the execrable Ten, now at the instigation of Loredano, 
a personal and hereditary enemy of the Foscaris, resolved to 
' humble the old man by insults. They ordered another election, 
and desired him to resign ; he pleaded his oath, and at length 
they removed him by a compulsory decree. The public voice 
was raised in accents of indignation at such treatment, such con- 
tinued persecution of this venerable person, so long the favourite 
of his countrymen. The council issued a proclamation, forbid- 
ding all persons to speak upon the subject on pain of being car- 
ried before the state inquisitors. Foscari died suddenly, but it 
is supposed a natural death, at the moment his successor's elec- 
tion was proclaimed. 



CH. XXII.] ZENO FALIERI. 285 

Of the government's jealous nature abundant examples have 
already been given ; nor did the former services of those who 
were the objects of its suspicions at all operate in allaying them, 
even where no apprehension of ambitious encroachment could be 
entertained. Carlo Zeno was the most distinguished person of 
his time, both for his great capacity, which had rescued the re- 
public from extreme danger, and as being one of the most irre- 
proachably virtuous of her citizens. He was accused before the 
council of having received a sum of about 100/. from Francis Car- 
rara, whose accounts showed the payment merely, without stating 
on what ground it had been made. Zeno at once admitted the 
fact, but stated that it was in repayment of a sum he had lent 
Carrara while in banishment at Asti. His character made it im- 
possible for any of his judges even to charge him with corrup- 
tion, and yet they deprived him of all his employments, and con- 
demned him to imprisonment for two years, as if to punish him 
for having proved that their suspicions were utterly groundless. 

As a last illustration of the courage and confidence produced 
by supreme power being entrusted to a select body, or a party 
looking only to itself, and above all responsibility, may be given 
the proceeding against the celebrated Marino Falieri ; and it is 
an instance in which the conduct of the government may be con- 
sidered as free from blame. In this case the popular feeling was 
on the doge's side ; his wife's virtue had been attempted by 
one of the chiefs of the council; a most inadequate reparation 
had been made by the offender's colleagues ; the citizens, whose 
families had for some years been invaded by the young nobles 
in the same manner, made common cause with the doge ; Ber- 
tuccio, a leading man among them, had himself suffered from the 
licentiousness and the insolence of these privileged intruders ; 
and the consequence was, a conspiracy formed to chastise the 
offenders and to overturn the aristocratic government which pro- 
tected them. The secret of the plot, however, was betrayed on 
the eve of its execution ; and the usual expedient of torture being 
resorted to, obtained a confession that the doge was implicated. 
He was brought to trial immediately before the Council of Ten. 
As there had been no instance of a doge being thus treated, the 
council called in as assessors twenty persons of the highest rank, 
and this sonta, or quinta, became a permanent body as Ave have 
seen. He was condemned to death and executed, but with closed 



266 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [CH. XX. 

watch the movements of the banished conspirators, and to prevent 
any renewal of their attempts. It was, in the strictest sense of 
the word, a dictatorship ; for it was vested with absolute power to 
arrest and punish summarily any nobles suspected of treason or 
felony ; to dispose of the public treasure, and generally to exercise 
all the powers of the grand council for the safety of the state. 
But armed with such authority, it became immediately a perma- 
nent body. At first it was continued for three years, with a pro- 
vision that each member should be re-elected or excluded at the 
end of four months ; afterwards it was adopted as an integral 
portion of the government, and, next to the grand council, it was 
the most important branch of the constitution. Indeed it may be 
regarded as having superseded the grand council itself, but for 
the control retained over it by that body continuing to choose it 
for short periods of time. 

Although called the Council of Ten, it consisted of seventeen 
members, all taken from the grand council and chosen by it ; ten, 
called the blr.ck (neri), from their official robes, and chosen at 
four meetings in the months of August and September — six, 
called the red (rossi), for the like reason, and chosen every four 
months, three at a time ; consequently the ten held their office for 
a year, and the six for eight months. The doge alone held his 
place in it for life, and acted as president. The whole members 
of the grand council were eligible, with one exception ; two per- 
sons of the same family, or even of the same name, could not be 
chosen ; an example of the extreme jealousy of each other which 
prevails among all the members of an aristocracy, as we have 
already had occasion to observe (Pt. n. Chap. v.). The proceed- 
ings of the Ten were all secret; the accused was not confronted 
with the witnesses ; he did not even know their names ; the 
punishment of death was inflicted sometimes in public, sometimes 
secretly ; and then the body of the criminal was exhibited, or he 
was only announced as having been put to death. The members 
were not responsible for their conduct either individually or as a 
body, and from their sentences there lay no appeal. Though in 
general they acted arbitrarily and without any regard to law, 
they occasionally laid down rules for their guidance when they 
were apprehensive that they might be induced to review their 
decisions. In that case they sometimes fixed a time within which 
their sentence should not be changed, or determined the number 



CH. XX.] COUNCIL OF TEN INQUISITORS. 267 

of voices which must concur to alter it. Like all the Italian 
tribunals, it used the torture both to the party accused and the 
witnesses. As if the powers of this council were not sufficient to 
secure a vigorous administration, there were three of its members 
who in succession held for three months the office of inquisitors ; 
they could order the instant execution of any citizen not noble, 
and inflict upon the nobles themselves any punishment short, of 
death : to inflict capital punishment upon a noble required the 
vote of the council at large, and the presence of fourteen mem- 
bers. As might be expected, the existence of such a tribunal 
led almost from its creation to the employment of spies in an 
abundance, and with a reliance upon their information and in- 
ventions, unknown to any other system. It was not even necessary 
that the secret informer should be seen by the council or inqui- 
sition. Boxes (called Lions' Mouths from their form) were placed 
in different parts of the city, into which any one might fling his 
denunciations. The keys of these boxes were intrusted to the 
inquisitors. The punishments ordered by the inquisitors were 
always inflicted secretly in the prisons. 

The Council of Ten, as might easily be foreseen, speedily usurped 
the whole authority and power of the government ; but, what 
could not have been expected, it never made any attempt what- 
ever to continue its existence and erect itself into a body inde- 
pendent of the grand council. On the contrary, when the grand 
council refused to re-elect it, which it might at any time do effec- 
tually by witholding the number of votes necessary to constitute 
an absolute majority,* the Council of Ten submitted, and a kind 
of interregnum took place, until the grand council thought proper 
to revive the governing body. This happened for the first time 
in the year 1580, and the last instance of the kind was in 1761, 
when the jurisdiction of the Ten was confined to criminal cases, 
and their power in other respects somewhat limited. 

With the exception of their never having continued their own 
authority, the relation of the Council of Ten to the grand council 
closely resembled that of the Committee of Public Safety to the 
National Convention in the French republic ; and it secured to the 
state many of the advantages which France derived from that too 
celebrated committee. All plots, all attempts to plot against the 

* A majority of the whole members of the Grand Council was required for the elec- 
tion of each of the Council of Ten. 



288 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [cH. XXII. 

cope with the ambition of any naval commander who should be 
raised to eminence by his services, but dreaded the conflict with 
land-forces ; or perhaps felt unequal to withstand the junction 
of a successful general with a victorious admiral. 

The jealousy of foreign influence arose from the same source — 
the fear of 'any citizen acquiring power dangerous to the state, 
that is, to the equality among the nobles, which all the arrange- 
ments of the constitution were framed to preserve. No precau- 
tions could prevent some from becoming wealthier than others, 
although their entering into trade was forbidden by law until 
the year 1788, when a proclamation encouraged their engaging 
both in manufactures and commerce. But the marriage of a 
noble, or the daughter of a noble, with a foreigner, was at all 
times strictly forbidden. The apprehension of direct foreign 
influence likewise operated in the same direction. No Venetian 
could be a knight of Malta ; nor could any priest belong to any 
of the councils, for fear of papal influence. 

We have already stated, that with all its faults, and notwith- 
standing the cruel despotism which it exercised over the nobles, 
the Venetian government had great merits as far as the people 
were concerned. No one under a certain rank was exposed to its 
suspicions and its oppressions, though any one, by becoming 
rich and powerful, became also the object of its vigilant superin- 
tendence. But that which deprived it of the most burthensome 
qualities of an aristocracy was the feudal attributes. No castles, 
no vassals, no territorial possessions either in the mainland or 
elsewhere, but enjoyed the same influence from their property 
with the wealthiest commoners. They had no doubt the protec- 
tion which belonged to their exclusive possession of the govern- 
ment ; but although at times (and we have seen one instance in 
. considering the history of Marino Falieri) they availed them- 
selves of their favour with the tribunals to oppress the citizens, 
yet generally speaking they were far too jealous of each other 
to allow such unlawful proceedings, and they administered the 
government so as to control their own order and give satisfaction to 
the people. They were in no sense of the word an insolent and 
domineering aristocracy. The turbulence of faction was also in 
modern times little experienced at Venice. During the eleventh 
century it had reached its height, and, as we have before seen, 
suspended the operations of the government in its provincial 



CH. XXII.] PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENT. 289 

affairs , but after that time, and even long before the revolution 
which founded the aristocratic power, it had almost entirely 
ceased. There is no instance of such a government having been 
so little a prey to party dissensions and intrigues. This can only 
be accounted for by the rigorous control which the Council of 
Ten habitually exercised over all who could enter into factious 
measures. 

The provincial policy of the government was in almost every 
respect inferior to its domestic administration, excepting always 
its treatment of the Italian dominions — those of the Terra Firma. 
The want of an army and fortified places in those provinces, as 
well as the natural hostility of the feudal nobles, made it neces- 
sary to take part with the people against the barons. Accord- 
ingly everything there wore a democratic aspect, as in Venice 
all was aristocratical. Hence the people regarded the govern- 
ment as their protector, and were ready to sacrifice their lives 
and fortunes " for St. Mark" (as the metropolis was familiarly 
termed), while the barons were reduced to insignificance, and 
humbled if not oppressed. In the remoter provinces it was 
widely otherwise. Though the republic maintained only a 
small military force to keep them in subjection, her navy was 
powerful, and the Greeks having a hatred and a fear of the 
Turks greater than any which Christian oppression could ex- 
cite, the Venetians could always reckon upon their submission, 
and even upon their service in the militia. The provincial go- 
vernment of St. Mark, then, afforded no exception to the 
position that commonwealths have in all ages been the most 
tyrannical of rulers. The senate was wise enough to leave the 
local administration in the hands of the natives when all the 
places of profit and power were engrossed by its own delegates. 
But with that single exception the unfortunate Greeks and Illy- 
rians enjoyed no consideration. Their markets were subject to 
the most galling monopoly ; their agriculture was oppressed with 
heavy taxes ; the Venetian, whether noble or commoner, never 
thought of settling, but resorted to the province in order to make 
money by oppressing it ; and the general hatred of the Greeks 
as being corrupt, and the contempt of the Illyrians as being 
barbarous, communicating itself to each individual, filled up 
whatever the government had left wanting in the measure of 
provincial maltreatment and vexation. The venality and cor- 

PART II. U 



290 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [CH. XXII. 

ruption which marked the government of the eastern dominions, 
and which tainted the administration of justice as well as of 
political power, presented a singular contrast to the purity with 
which the city and the Terra Firma were always ruled. 

It remains that we observe how entirely the frame of the Ve- 
netian government conformed itself to the law which seems 
general in aristocratical systems, and became, in the natural 
course of things, an oligarchy. 

We have hitherto been considering that government as it 
originally was formed, and assuming that its powers continued to 
be vested in the whole body of the nobles. By law and in 
theory, no doubt, they did so continue to the very end. But in 
fact a great change had taken place, though so silently and so gra- 
dually, that it is quite impossible to trace it, or to point out the 
time when and the steps by which it was effected. At first it is 
probable there were few nobles excluded from the Great Council of 
four hundred and eighty, and that the whole body of the nobility 
consisted of no more than six hundred, if so many. It is certain 
that in those early times there were none of the class who did 
not possess sufficient fortune and weight to be really component 
parts of a patrician or aristocratic body. Several circumstances, 
however, concurred with the natural increase of their numbers 
and the accidents of life, to create a division of the order into 
rich and poor. It was very early held disgraceful for a noble to 
follow any profession but that of arms or public employment ; 
and as they would not serve in the land-forces, their choice was 
reduced to the navy or the civil service of the state. The law 
forbade the exercise of trade, and also prohibited their holding 
more than one office at a time. They were alike prevented from 
repairing their fortunes by foreign alliances ; and marriage with 
wealthy mercantile families was their only resource. Thus it 
happened that the numbers increasing to about thirteen hundred, 
many of them, invested with the whole privileges of their order, 
were reduced to the lowest poverty, and led a miserable and 
dependent life, pensioners upon the charity of the state or serv- 
ing their wealthier brethren in almost a menial capacity. It 
was reckoned that no less than five hundred received public 
charity, and several hundreds besides had nothing that could 
be called an independent fortune. Yet all of these were in- 
scribed in the golden book like the wealthiest ; and all of them 



CH. XXII.] NATURAL OLIGARCHY ESTABLISHED. 291 

equally had votes in every one of the many elections which were 
continually going on to form the councils that administered the 
government. There were only about sixty families who really 
possessed sufficient influence ever to be chosen as members of 
the government from their wealth and rank — that is, from the 
number of years they had continued in such circumstances and the 
number of considerable persons belonging to them, and of other 
but poorer nobles devoted to their interests. The general ex- 
istence of bribery and corruption of all sorts between a body of 
candidates and a body of voters thus constituted may easily be 
imagined. The original body of nobility received very rarely 
any recruits. In times of great financial embarrassment nobility 
was sold to the wealthiest citizens, but for a price so high that 
few could purchase it; as much as 100,000 ducats, or 30,000/. of 
our money, was required to be paid, and in times when the 
value of money was twice as high as it now is. The nobles of 
the Italian provinces were never regarded as members of the 
order ; but in later times they were admitted on proving a noble 
descent for two centuries and the possession of an income from 
land of 1600/. a-year ; conditions with which very few could 
comply. 

Thus there was formed an aristocracy within an aristocracy, 
in fact an oligarchy — an hereditary body of sixty families in 
whose hands the whole powers of the government were placed. 
Every one of the thirteen hundred was equally eligible to all 
offices from that of doge downwards, as every one could equally 
vote at all elections ; every one could be procurator of St. Mark, 
governor of Corfu, of Verona, member of the Council of Ten, or 
Inquisitor of State ; but to such offices no one ever dreamt of 
aspiring, except about ninety or a hundred persons, perhaps not 
half as many, since only one of a house could hold some of the 
higher offices, and the accidents of health or incapacity would 
disqualify several of the select few. 

In this respect they accurately resembled our own nobility in 
England ; or rather, in this most material respect, the Venetian 
and the English constitutions, strange as it may seem, stood till 
very late times exactly upon the same footing. 

The chief power was vested in the House of Commons and 
those who elected it. Not supreme and unchecked, as at Venice, 
it was lodged in the privileged class and councils chosen by 

u2 



292 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [CH. XXII- 

them, but still the chief power, and which, if exercised with 
firmness and union among those who held it, could not be re- 
sisted by the other branches of the government. The chief 
class which chose the House of Commons was a comparatively 
small number of persons. These had originally formed a kind 
of minor nobility, the freeholders, or persons holding imme- 
diately of the crown, and they had originally sat themselves in 
parliament, probably in England, certainly in Scotland, and not 
by their representatives. But to them were afterwards added 
the chief persons in the towns. By changes which took place 
in the fifteenth century both in England and Scotland, a portion 
only of the freeholders was allowed to retain the right of 
election, and the elective franchise was afterwards gradually re- 
stricted to a few of the burghers. Let us cast our eyes back 
upon the Scottish parliament, in which the resemblance to the 
Venetian aristocracy is the most striking. 

The commons sat in the same chamber with the peers, and 
originally without any representation. The peers were the 
greater barons; the commons the lesser or gentlemen. The 
rest of the community had no share whatever in the govern- 
ment, no political rights; and except that the power of the 
crown was much more substantial than that of the doge, and 
that the clergy were not represented by the prelates, the govern- 
ment was an aristocracy of the same kind in its fundamental 
principles with the Venetian. The introduction of representa- 
tion took place in both systems, except that in Scotland a portion 
of the nobles continued to sit in person, while at Venice the 
whole of the councils became elective for a time ; and afterwards 
the great council, the body of electors, did little more than ex- 
ercise its functions of choosing the bodies by whom the govern- 
ment was administered. But this leading feature was common 
to both Scotland and Venice — the enjoyment of political power 
was strictly confined to a very small class of the community, the 
great body of the people being wholly excluded from the con- 
stitution. It is, however, to be observed that a considerably 
larger proportion of the people exercised the power of election 
at Venice, that is, had a share in the government, than in Scot- 
land. There were 1300 nobles, all equally entitled to vote and 
to be elected to every office and every council, nay, actually 
sitting in one of the councils. This formed about one in 115 






CH. XXII.] COMPARISON OF ENGLAND AND VENICE. 293 

of the people. In Scotland before 1832 the number of voters 
was 4000, in a population of 2,360,000 — or one in 590 — five 
times fewer than at Venice. Even now the proportion is not 
three times greater than it was at Venice, between the privi- 
leged class and the whole body of the people. 

But the resemblance holds not only with respect to the origin 
of the privileged class and its small proportion to the com- 
munity at large ; the manner in which it became divided so as 
to engender an oligarchy, and the quality in general of its mem- 
bers, were by no means so dissimilar as they might at first sight 
seem to be. In Scotland, as at Venice, the lesser barons became 
numerous by natural increase, and many of them fell necessarily 
into poverty. Take even the body of 4000 voters and compare 
them with the 1300 Venetian nobles, there will be found fully 
as great a proportion of the latter as of the former class in a 
mean and dependent condition. On the other hand the aristo- 
cracy within the aristocracy, the natural oligarchy, existed in as 
great perfection among our Scottish privileged persons as among 
the Venetian. Though all could by law be elected to parlia- 
ment and hold offices in the state, in practice there was an 
impassable barrier between the poor man and either parliament 
or place. The main distinction between the two systems was 
that all who could acquire very moderate wealth found among 
us no barrier excluding them from becoming electors ; having 
once become electors, they could overleap the second barrier 
by the further acquisition of wealth, but in this respect the two 
systems were alike. In one other material particular the ruling 
caste of the northern aristocracy is most honourably distinguished 
from its parallel in the south ; there may have been as much 
canvassing, bribery, corruption, and undue influence in Scotland 
as at Venice, but the voters, with all the pride of the Scottish 
character, were not slaves to that pride of family, so ludicrous 
if it were not so melancholy, which, while it prevented the high- 
born pauper from earning an honest independence, and taught 
him to look down upon the genius of his fellow- citizens, the most 
wealthy and enterprising merchants in the world, did not prevent 
the most ancient nobility of Europe * from seeking a discredit- 

* Of this there can be no doubt. The Venetian nobility goes back to the seventh 
century at least — probably to the sixth. 



294 GOVERNMENT OF VENICE. [CH. XXII. 

able livelihood by holding up a prelate's train, or bearing a rich 
lord's sword. 

In many respects, and among others in their mingled pride 
and meanness, and spirit of intrigue, the Venetian nobles con- 
tinued to the end of the republic such as the form and the prac- 
tice of the government had made them. But the progress of 
improvement had greatly mitigated the harsher features of their 
administration, as well as lessened the more profligate propen- 
sities of their character. The possession of wealth became a 
title to respect in all particulars ; the cultivation of letters and 
the liberal arts raised another description of men to consequence. 
Society gradually became somewhat more mixed ; and the nobles 
in the same proportion became responsible to public opinion. 
They still considered their own order to be the tribunal before 
which, whether as private individuals or as acting in the differ- 
ent administrative councils, their conduct was chiefly to be tried; 
and therefore many things were done and many duties neglected 
which a differently constituted state would not have permitted. 
But the perfidious massacre of the Carraras, the offering rewards 
for assassination, the torture and banishment of Foscari, and 
even the execution of Martino Faliero, could no more have 
happened at the end of the 18th century at Venice, than the 
cruelties of Lauderdale and the profligacy of Charles could have 
been repeated, after having stained, and without any risk to 
their perpetrators, the period marked by Blackstone as the most 
perfect era of the English constitution. 



ch. xxin.] 295 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS VENETIAN TERRA FIRMA. 



Terra Firma — Feudal Nobility — Municipal Government in their hands originally — 
Podestas — Factions — Montechi and Bonifazii — Adelardi and Salinguerra — Vivario 
and Vicenza families — Rise of the Friars— Their fanatical preaching and influence — 
Their usurpation — John of Vicenza — Jordan of Padua — Ezzelino da Romano — His 
prodigious tyranny — Despicable submission of the People — His destruction — Sub- 
mission of the Towns to others — Levity of Democratic Councils of Padua — Cor- 
rected by the Aristocracy — Municipal Governments — Anziani — Gastaldioni — Cane 
della Scala — John Galeaz Visconti — Democracy of Verona and Vicenza — Submis- 
sion of the People to tyranny — War of Parties in Italy — Hired troops — Condottieri 
— Military operations — Surrender of rights by the People to Chiefs — Effects of Aris- 
tocracy, Faction, Tyranny, on the character of the People — Letters and the Arts. 



We may now proceed to consider those governments which 
arose out of the feudal monarchies. We examined the scheme 
of policy created in the Venetian islands in the first place, be- 
cause it is the only Italian commonwealth which never was 
subject to either the Gothic, the Frank, or the Saxon kingdoms, 
and which seems to have arisen directly out of the ruins of the 
Roman empire. But we have seen that it acquired, though at 
a comparatively late period, a footing on the mainland by the 
conquest of Padua, Verona, Vicenza, and Friul. We may there- 
fore now conveniently begin with considering the governments 
of the Terra Firma before this conquest by the ambitious and 
powerful city. 

The barons of Terra Firma were distinguished from those 
of the other Italian districts by a very important peculiarity. 
Their possessions extended so as to come into the immediate 
neighbourhood of the towns ; but the country was mountainous, 
bold, and difficult ; and hence their castles were much more 
independent of the burgher power when that rose, as we have 
shown it did generally, in the twelfth century (Partn. Ch. xix.). 
Those nobles, like the others, enrolled themselves among the 



296 VENETIAN TERRA FIRM A. [CH. XXIII. 

citizens of the neighbouring towns, but not, as elsewhere, in 
order to obtain protection either in their struggles with the 
sovereign, the prince, or great feudatory, or as against the civic 
power itself. On the contrary they early conceived ambitious 
designs upon the independence of the towns, and beside enrolling 
themselves, they built palaces within the walls and fortified them 
so as to make each house a castle. In Ferrara there were not 
fewer than thirty-two such fortresses within the walls. At first 
they remained united amongst themselves as against the burghers, 
obtained possession of all the civic offices, kept all the power 
in their own hands, and domineered over the citizens. But, as 
always happens in aristocratic governments, party spirit soon 
gained admission, and every town was divided between two 
contending factions. 

There is nothing more singular in the history of the Italian 
republics than their at first violently opposing Frederic Barba- 
rossa upon the substitution which he aimed at, of podestas for 
consuls, and afterwards, when they had successfully resisted 
him, adopting that institution voluntarily, although their repug- 
nance to it and to giving up their consuls had really been the 
main cause of the quarrel, the chief ground of the contention with 
him. These podestas were always foreigners ; the nobles had 
the choice of them in the Terra Firma cities ; and neither party 
could trust the important functions of the office to an adverse 
partisan connected with the place. The podesta both com- 
manded the forces and presided over the distribution of justice ; 
and he brought with him a body of his own followers to give 
his administration weight, as well as to provide for his own se- 
curity. These arrangements were willingly submitted to by 
the people, because they found in them the only means of quell- 
ing the fury of the aristocratic factions, and securing the great 
object of a tolerable police. The choice of consuls had been 
much more in the hands of the people ; the podestas were 
almost always named by the select body, the credenza, or the 
senate ; substantially by the nobles. But they exercised their 
powers with vigour, and made examples of all who committed 
acts of violence, without regard to their station. Indeed their 
administration of justice was much of a military or dictatorial 
character. They were quite independent of both the people 



CH. XXIII.] FACTIOUS DIVISIONS. 297 

and the nobles ; whereas the consuls had always been more or 
less under the influence of their fellow-citizens. The podesta 
never scrupled to arrest a refractory noble, appeal for help to 
the body of the citizens as well as to his own followers, put to 
death any one committing treason against the community, and 
rase his fortified house or castle to the ground. The people 
willingly purchased, by a sacrifice of their own power, this relief 
from the outrages of the contending factions. Sometimes each 
party chose one podesta, and these two joined in choosing a single 
podesta. At Verona the two parties were the Montecchi (who 
were Ghibellines or imperial) and Bonifazii, sometimes called 
Capeletti (who were the papal or independent party), and they 
commonly joined in the choice of a podesta. The parties in 
most of the cities were denominated, as we have seen (Part I. 
Ch. xvin.), either from some nickname, or from the leading 
family of each. At Verona the two families were the Montecchi 
and Bonifazii, and their memory has been preserved by our 
Shakspere under the names of Montagu and Capulet. The same 
arrangement took place at Ferrara as at Verona, the Adelardi, 
who were Guelfs, joining with the Salinguerra, the Ghibellines, 
in the appointment. At Vicenza the parties of the Vivario and 
Vicenza families commonly joined in naming a commissario, and 
he chose the podesta ; but at one time each party chose its own 
podesta. 

It is needless to observe, however, that in many instances the 
violence and profligacy of the factions became an overmatch for 
the podesta's authority, though backed by the aid of the citizens 
at large. In Ferrara one quarrel of the two leading families 
about the marriage of an heiress kept the republic in a state of 
constant civil war for forty years, from 1180 to 1220. During 
that period the city was no less than ten times exposed to the 
proscriptions, the pillage, and the destruction of houses con- 
sequent upon each reverse that gave the victory to one or other 
of the factions. 

In the two other Guelf towns, Vicenza and Padua, a tempo- 
rary change took place soon after this time, and extended itself 
also to Verona, the chief Ghibelline town in the north-east of 
Italy. The fanatical preaching of the Franciscan and Dominican 
friars, whose order had recently been established, obtained them 
extraordinary influence with the multitude. They used this to 



'J.)S VENETIAN TERRA FIRMA. [cil. XXIII. 

inveigh against a luxury which had really no existence, the 
manners and habitfl of all classes being of extreme simplicity; 
but the ascetic life which the monks and hermits practised made 
the most ordinary indulgences appear excessive. They did a 
far better service to humanity by opposing with their utmost 
zeal the bloodthirsty and turbulent habits of the rival factions 
and rival towns, and endeavouring to put down all private war. 
But their most favourite object was of a very different descrip- 
tion, the establishment of inquisitorial tribunals, and associations 
for the extirpation of heresy by fire and sword. The zeal of the 
crusaders appears never to have taken this new direction. John 
of Vicenza, one of these Dominicans, distinguished himself 
chiefly by the more holy of these works — the preaching of peace. 
He obtained so great an influence, not only with the people, who 
had always hated the wars of the patrician factions, but even 
with the nobles themselves, that they took the oaths of peace 
which he presented ; and the magistrates of the principal 
towns called upon him to reform their municipal statutes, in 
order to repress more effectually the outrages against which he 
had inveighed. Padua, then the most powerful of the common- 
wealths in the March of Treviso, Vicenza, Verona, Treviso, 
Belluno, all submitted to his legislation, as did also Mantua, 
Brescia, and Bologna, cities not in the March. Encouraged by 
his success, he convoked a general meeting of the inhabitants of 
the towns, to hear the blessed doctrines of peace preached. It 
was held in the plain of Pasquara, near Verona, and is said to 
have been attended by above 400,000 persons, who flocked to 
it under their prelates, nobles, and magistrates, from Bologna on 
the south, to Acquileia on the north of the Adriatic. Moved by 
his eloquence, and by the novelty of being thus addressed with 
scriptural texts, and vehement exhortations by learned men,* 

* The remains which have been preserved to us of the sermons that produced such 
marvellous effects are mere strings of texts, accompanied by the most homely remarks 
in no great number. The language chiefly used was Latin, which the people generally 
understood, though they could not speak it. Frequently the preacher made his com- 
mentary also in the mother tongue, then beginning to acquire form and symmetry. 
The usual operation of a vehement manner must have combined with the as ordinary 
influence of a numerous crowd to produce the effects which all the authorities ascribe 
to the exertions of those preachers, not only in leading multitudes, hut inducing men of 
.ill ranks to obey their injunctions, making mo?t governments submit to their arbitra- 
tion, and leading barons to quit the world for the hermitage, and even princes to seek 
the cloister. 



CH. XX1I1.] RISE AND FALL OF THE FRIARS. 299 

the assembled thousands entered into the pacification which he 
enjoined, under threat of the heaviest curses ; and the families 
of D'Este and Romano, the leaders of the most turbulent of the 
factions, ratified the treaty by a marriage which he dictated. 
Whether it was that the success of this assembly filled the 
preacher with an ambition of the more ordinary kind, or that his 
real views had always partaken of the secular nature, and that 
he now found the moment opportune for realizing them, certain 
it is that he who hitherto had confined himself exclusively to 
his holy ministry, all at once assumed the attitude of a temporal 
chief; and after spreading abroad the fame of many miracles 
which he pretended to have wrought, he obtained the ready 
assent of the municipal council, first of Vicenza, and then of 
Verona, to the assumption of supreme power, as duke and 
count, in their commonwealths. The multitude in both towns 
manifestly overpowered the patricians, both hurried on by the 
influence which he had acquired over them, and seduced by his 
promises to curb the aristocracy, and distribute the offices and 
powers of the community more equally. He made many new 
laws, which gave little satisfaction ; he, however, checked the 
barons by obtaining hostages for their pacific conduct ; and he 
garrisoned some of their castles with the public force. But his 
usurpation Avas attended with the most odious persecution. At 
Verona he condemned many persons for heresy, and caused 
sixty, all members of the first families, to be publicly burnt. 
Meanwhile another monk, Jordan, a Benedictine, had obtained 
nearly as great power, and by similar means, at Padua, though 
he never assumed the title of sovereign. Excited by his remon- 
strances, the Paduans attacked Vicenza, liberated the inhabitants 
from the tyranny of John, and after taking him prisoner, only 
gave him up at the Pope's intercession, on his exiling himself, 
and taking refuge in his original obscurity at Bologna. 

The flight of the monkish ruler restored the domination of 
the nobles at Vicenza, and brought back a still worse curse than 
Eriar John had proved to Verona. Some years before, in 1225, 
the senate of that commonwealth, a body of eighty nobles, annually 
chosen by their own body, had been returned entirely under the 
influence of the Montecchi party, and the Guelfs had been driven 
away. Eccelino, or Ezzelino, da Romano, the Ghibclline leader, 



300 > ENETIAN TERRA FIRM A. [cH. XXIII. 

prevailed on the senate to create for him the office of captain of 
the people, and under that title to appoint him podesta. At first 
he made no change in their institutions, but in a few years he was 
allowed to introduce an imperial garrison into the town as the 
most effectual means, it was represented, of maintaining the ruling 
faction and " keeping out" the Guelfs. He soon obtained the most 
absolute power in Verona. The other towns, though under the in- 
fluence generally of some one powerful family, had not as yet 
given themselves hereditary princes. The government in each of 
them was really possessed by a few of the nobles, to whom the 
others were as submissive as they were tyrannical over the vassals 
on their estates, and over the common people in the towns. In 
those places where a single family possessed the chief influence 
this abject submission was shown towards its chief. But in all 
of these republics the intrigues and contentions of parties were 
uninterrupted, and the councils of the community were fluctuat- 
ing and distracted. The Marquis D'Este had been made chief 
(rettore) of Vicenza ; but, without consulting him, the Vicentines 
and Paduans joined in an attack on Verona. Ezzelino, at the 
head of the imperial troops, took Vicenza, and treated it like a 
town that had been stormed. The Paduans put D'Este at their 
head, and placed the government in the hands of sixteen nobles, 
who proved cowards and traitors, first flying to their castles, and 
then, on their return, delivering over the town to the Ghibellines. 
Ezzelino thus became sovereign under the Emperor of Padua 
and Vicenza, and introduced an imperial guard into those towns 
as he had done into Verona. He began by destroying the resi- 
dence of every noble in the town who had opposed him ; and one 
half the places or castles of Padua are said to have been rased by 
him to the ground. 

It appears certain that Ezzelino exceeded, in the cruelty of 
his ferocious reign, all the atrocities of the other tyrants whose 
history has reached us, either in ancient or modern times. That 
he put none of his victims secretly to death, if it were true, 
which there never could be any means of ascertaining, would 
only show that his audacity and contempt of all men's feelings 
kept pace with the relentlessness of his savage nature Murders 
were openly committed by his orders, sometimes by public ex- 
ecution, sometimes accompanied with torture, sometimes by 






CH. XXIII.] TYRANNY OF EZZELINO. 301 

walling up the cells of his victims and leaving them to perish of 
hunger, and so near the street that the air was rent with their 
cries. His own nephew was among the number whom he de- 
stroyed, having first starved to death the young man's uncles, 
barons of Vado. His practice was to imprison, frequently to 
kill, the relations and friends of the parties on whom his ven- 
geance was wreaked. Once he put to death the whole of a 
numerous family who had been his most devoted adherents, and 
their offence was that one of them had married a Guelf. When 
Padua was rescued from his gripe, he revenged himself upon all 
its inhabitants who happened to be in his army. These, to the 
number of 11,000, were dispersed in small bodies and massacred, 
only 200 having escaped. When at length he was overthrown, 
his prisons were found filled with many hundreds of victims of 
both sexes, and many children among them, whom the monster 
had caused to be blinded and otherwise mutilated. His lieu- 
tenants, whether the podestas whom he appointed in the towns, 
or the officers whom he placed in the castles of the subject 
barons, were to the full as bloody-minded as himself, if they had 
less audacious courage. One of them put a whole audience of 
persons to death for having applauded some verses which he 
supposed contained a dark allusion to the tyrant. Nothing 
can be more disgraceful to human nature than the length 
of time during which this execrable fiend was suffered to 
outrage humanity. Full two- and- twenty years elapsed after 
the capture of Padua, when he perfidiously seized and impri- 
soned twenty of the noblest Paduans, as well as Friar Jordan, 
the favourite of the people, and began to pull down the castles 
of every one who fled from his cruelty ; and during that long 
period nothing like an insurrection of the people, nor any con- 
spiracy of the nobles, can be traced to have taken place. One 
attempt only was made to destroy him; and one to destroy a 
creature of his whom he had armed with his delegated tyranny, 
nature and education having already qualified him to represent 
his master. A noble prisoner, brought before Ygna, the podesta 
of Yerona, rushed upon him and stabbed the wretch to the 
heart before the guards could cut his destroyer in pieces. This 
passage is said to have occasioned the Italian proverb, which 
purports that whoever sets no value on his own life is master of 



302 VENETIAN TERRA FIRMA. [oil. XXIII. 

the king's. It was a crusade preached by the pope against the 
common scourge that finally raised a sufficient force to destroy 
him; and the singular courage and capacity of the man made 
the event for some time doubtful, the first symptom of defection 
from him that he ever experienced having been on the morning 
of the day he received the wound, of which, being taken pri- 
soner, he refused to be cured, and died fiercely and fearlessly 
as he had lived. 

All the commonwealths which Ezzelino had enslaved now 
recovered their liberty, but only to lose it some years later, 
though to less oppressive masters. Verona made Martino della 
Scala podesta, and thus laid the foundation of that principality. 
Vicenza placed herself again under the senate of Padua, which 
appointed her podesta, and also their own. Padua retained her 
constitution much longer, and it was always more or less popular 
during the remaining part of the thirteenth and a portion of the 
fourteenth century. The government was indeed at different 
times almost purely democratic, when the people so far pre- 
vailed over the nobles as to vest the whole administration in the 
companies of artisans. At the head of these were popular tri- 
bunes, called Gastaldioni. The senate itself then became a 
popular body, for it was composed of citizens to the number of 
one thousand, elected yearly. The nobles, even those most 
eminent for their talents, were without discrimination excluded 
absolutely from all places of power or trust. Yet, with an in- 
consistency of which, except in the Italian republics, there are 
no examples, the people had no jealousy of the most powerful 
and ambitious family of all the nobles ; they had recourse to the 
Carraras as leaders against the rest of the patricians, and gave 
them a preponderance which enabled them, early in the four- 
teenth century, to possess themselves of the supreme direction of 
affairs. Nothing could exceed the levity and uncertainty of the 
Paduan councils as long as this democratic influence prevailed. 
Vicenza threw off their yoke ; sought the protection of Cane 
della Scala (the patron whom Dante has celebrated as affording 
him refuge when banished from Florence), and, preferring the 
rule of an absolute prince to the tyranny of their Paduan neigh- 
bours, had vested in him the uncontrolled government of their 
state, and soon found him taking the usual precautions against 



CH. XXI11.] PADUAN DEMOCRACY. 303 

their fickleness, by introducing a foreign garrison, and maintain- 
ing body-guards. 

The Paduan democracy fluctuated between its hatred of Cane 
della Scala and its fears of the emperor Henry VII., then engaged 
in an expedition to recover the imperial authority in Italy. When 
they had resolved to resist the emperor they immediately took 
fright, and endeavoured to obtain peace. For this they had to 
pay in the harshness of its conditions. They then violated these, 
and recommenced the war. Against Della Scala they raised the 
largest army that had in modern times been seen in Italy — - 
10,000 horse and 40,000 foot — but it remained inactive, and 
gained no advantage, when a pestilent disease, to which its ill- 
chosen position subjected it, rendered the whole design abortive. 
It was always remarked that when the errors, inconsistencies, 
and incapacity of the popular government had brought the state 
within a hair's breadth of destruction, the nobles were looked 
to as the only resource, and generally interfered with effect. 
Their party having obtained once more the superiority, the 
people turned their eyes towards the Carraras, who in 1314 headed 
a sedition against the ruling body, at the head of which were 
two wealthy men, self-raised to power from being citizens, yet 
supporting the exclusive or aristocratic policy. The old popular 
government was thus restored by the general assembly of the 
inhabitants. The administration of affairs was vested in eighteen 
senators (called anziani) ; these were to be assisted by tribunes 
{gastaldioni) , and a foreigner was chosen podesta. The affairs 
of the commonwealth, however, prospered no better than before ; 
and an, attempt to regain Yicenza was defeated with great loss. 
Della Scala threatened reprisals, and seemed prepared to besiege 
Padua ; and Jacob Carrara, whom he had made prisoner in the 
unsuccessful attack of the Paduans, having gained his confi- 
dence, is supposed to have obtained for his country the favour- 
able terms of the peace which was made, and no sooner made 
than broken by the restless government of Padua. Cane then 
attacked Padua in good earnest, but spared all the Carrara 
estates ; notwithstanding which, and the other manifestations of 
the secret understanding that prevailed between himself and 
that family, it continued as popular as ever, had exclusive pos- 
session of all the places of trust ; and its partisans, taking advan- 
tage of the desperate state of public affairs, assembled the senate 



304 VENETIAN TERRA FIRM A, [cH. XXIII. 

and magistrates, and easily carried a resolution abolishing the 
democratic constitution and restoring the government in Carrara 
and his family. This happened in 1318. Four years after they 
found themselves unable to support their independence against 
the power and genius of (Jane della Scala, who added Padua to 
his other principalities of Verona, Vicenza, Ferrara, and Tre- 
viso, and retained Carrara as his lieutenant in Padua. But the 
successors of Cane soon lost the power which his great capacity 
and good fortune had enabled him to acquire, and a league 
formed against them by Florence, Venice, and other republics, 
alarmed by the universal encroachments of the family, terminated 
in their losing the greater part of their principalities. At Padua, 
the Carraras, heading the Guelf party, regained their authority, 
which they retained (with an interval of two years, when Vis- 
conti seized upon it) till, at the beginning of the fifteenth cen- 
tury, they were conquered, as we have seen, by Venice, which 
had obtained previously no other part on the mainland, except 
Treviso, ceded on the peace dictated by the allies to Delia Scala 
in 1348.* 

John Galeaz Visconti (the first Duke of Milan) overthrew 
the remains of the Della Scalas, and succeeded to the princi- 
pality both of Verona and Vicenza. Though the league formed 
against him succeeded in recovering Padua, which he had also 
taken, he retained his other possessions; and it w T as only during 
the minority of his sons, and the blood-thirsty and feeble re- 
gency of his widow, that Verona w r as taken by Carrara, and 
became subject to his government, and that Vicenza was given 
up to Venice as the price of her joining the regent against Car- 
rara. 

The effects of the democratic government at Padua in dis- 
tracting the councils of the community, and supporting per- 
petual factious contests, have been already noted; the same 
consequences were produced in the less important common- 
wealths of Verona and Vicenza. In all the three states, too, 
there was the same disregard of liberty on the part of the 
people, the same disposition to give themselves masters, so as 
they might only insure a triumph over some adverse party. At 

* In 1381, being attacked by Carrara, and unable to defend it, they sold Treviso 
to Leopold of Austria, from whom Carrara bought it soon after ; and it came to Venice 
with the rest of Carrara's possessions in 1406. 



CH. XXIII.] POPULAR SUBMISSION TO TYRANTS. 305 

Vicenza the domination, first of trie Scalas, then of the Viscontis, 
was welcomed, as the means of avoiding a union with Padna 
under the mild rule of the Carraras, both from the natural 
antipathy to the Paduans and from the Ghibelline hatred of 
the Guelfs. When the Viscontis had, by the unexpected re- 
storation of Carrara at Padua, for a short time been overthrown 
at Yerona also, and the burghers would have re-established the 
republican government, the populace insisted on taking back 
the representative of the Scala family, a child of six years old, 
and restoring its absolute sovereignty, without any condition or 
limitation. Francis Carrara himself was rescued at Padua with- 
out the least attempt at reviving the popular government, though 
circumstances gave the citizens the power of making whatever 
terms they chose. So when his father abdicated three years 
before, the forms of the old popular government were gone 
through, and the people stood by as passive spectators of a 
show. They were assembled in the old hall, where the former 
meetings had been held before the beginning of the century; 
four senators, a gonfaloniere, and a mayor (syndaco) were ap- 
pointed: into their hands the sovereignty was resigned, and 
they transferred it to the prince's son, without a moment's de- 
liberation, the people taking no more part than if there never 
had been a commonwealth in Padua. 

It is generally said that such was the effect of a tyrannical 
government, at least of an absolute monarchy, which had for 
many years been founded upon the ruins of the republican or 
aristocratic constitution. But this will not account for the entire 
disregard of popular rights, and the proneness to choose a single 
master, which, long before the downfall of the Viscontis at 
Verona, the abdication of the elder Carrara at Padua," and 
the submission to the Scalas at Vicenza, had marked the con- 
duct of those republics. Seventy years before the abdication, 
and one hundred and twenty -eight before the downfall, the 
same indications had appeared on the part of the people, and 
the same conduct had been held by them. The misgovernment 
of the nobles, the maladministration of the popular bodies, above 
all the contests of the factions, were the real causes of the utter 
indifference with which the people had come to regard the 
changes in the dynasty, or rather of the inclination which they 
showed to have rulers who should give them some chance of 

PART II. ^ 



306 VENETIAN TERRA FIRM A. [CH. XXIII . 

escaping from the miseries they had so long and so largely en- 
dured. No one can suppose that, with their active and intelli- 
gent nature, the Italians had ceased to take an interest in the 
management of public affairs. Even if the habits had not been 
formed, of mingling with every movement of the state as it 
were a private and individual concern, they were very sure to 
have interested themselves in whatever was passing, but much 
more when, for a long course of years, they had been constantly 
appealed to, sometimes for their active co-operation, always for 
their countenance and acclamation, by whatever power was ex- 
erting itself in each community. But then this state of things 
had been attended with most serious consequences to every 
member of society, not even excepting the humbler classes, over 
whose heads, in all other modern states, the storms of civil discord 
are wont to sweep innocuous. 

For the conflict of parties in an Italian commonwealth, and of 
different towns or commonwealths with one another, was not 
carried on by one class only of the community, but engaged 
every description of the people. When the great bell tolled to 
intimate either that there was a revolt, and the magistrates must 
be supported, or that there was an invasion, and the citizens 
must defend their country, all were bound to join the standard 
of their quarter; no delay was allowed, nor was any excuse 
accepted. A candle was sometimes lit under the gate, and 
before it burnt into the socket the citizens must be armed and 
in the field, and before the tolling of the bell had ceased. 

The only troops, however, on whom reliance was placed were 
the heavy-armed cavalry ; and the practice had become universal 
at the beginning of the fourteenth century to have these com- 
posed wholly of foreigners. Before the end of the century it 
had been found that an ample supply of such hired troops 
might be obtained in Italy ; arid, accordingly, there were cap- 
tains everywhere, who made it their calling to raise and train 
bands whom they hired out indiscriminately to all states and all 
factions. These condottieri also introduced another practice : 
the campaigns they carried on were marked with little blood- 
shed for the soldier, but, in compensation for this, the citizens 
and the peasantry bore the brunt of the war, and their indis- 
criminate pillage, as it was the great aim of the military move- 
ment, so it was the unfailing consequence of its result. 



CH. XXIII.] EFFECTS OF PARTY CONTESTS. 307 

The economy of every state was arranged with a view to the 
operations of this predatory warfare. The country was not 
studded with houses, or barns, or buildings of any kind ; all the 
peasants lived in villages, walled and fortified, and protected by 
the castle of the baron or his lieutenant. On the first alarm, all 
the cattle, and stores and implements, and moveable property of 
every description, were removed within the shelter of the castle. 
To overpower the whole country, scores of such places must be 
taken. There were in the Florentine territory three or four 
hundred such fortified villages or single castles. Hence the in- 
vading army much more frequently rested satisfied with com- 
mitting as much havoc as it could in the deserted country, and 
taking as many of the castles as it could overpower by a sudden 
and unexpected movement. The instant that the place sur- 
rendered, every enormity was practised, as a matter of right 
and of course, upon the persons of the wretched inhabitants to 
whom it had afforded a shelter, and upon their property, which 
was given up to indiscriminate and unrestrained pillage. 

It is not to be wondered at that the people grew tired of con- 
tests which the nobility thus carried on for its own benefit, and 
at their cost. But it is certain that the remedy was a most 
ineffectual one to which they had recourse, that of giving up 
the government to the arbitrary disposal of a single chief; and 
there were as many wars and as much suffering under the petty 
tyrants, as under either the aristocracy or the democratic rulers 
whom they superseded. 

Nor must we omit to mark the benefits which resulted from 
popular constitutions, with all their serious evils, and the mis- 
chiefs which accompanied the establishment of absolute princes. 
We have seen how ill the affairs of Padua were administered 
by the democratic government. Yet during the usurpation and 
tyranny of Ezzelino the whole industry and commerce of the 
state was, as it were, suspended ; and the half century which 
followed his downfall, though distinguished by constant errors 
and mismanagement of the public concerns, so that neighbour- 
ing powers could hardly tell in what the Paduan government 
consisted, was yet still more marked by the great and general 
progression of the people in every branch of industry, and in 
the acquisition of all kinds of wealth. The erection of a court 
in every city, with all its attendants of oppression, flattery, false- 

x 2 



308 VENETIAN TERRA F1RMA. [CH. XXIII. 

hood, and subserviency, would have been a high price to pay 
for even the precious benefit of freedom from factious conten- 
tion and intrigue ; but these were not extirpated, they only 
changed their course and their complexion. We have already 
had occasion to explain the evils of petty principalities (Part I., 
Chapter xviii.). It is impossible to rank among these any pe- 
culiar tendency to produce by far the worst vices which stain 
the character of Italian society in the middle ages, and especially 
in the fourteenth century — treachery and cruelty, the utter dis- 
regard of good faith, and of human life and suffering, which 
marks the conduct of all the wars and all the factious move- 
ments of the times. The hardness of heart produced by uncon- 
trolled power, the corruption engendered by the unalterable 
smiles of fawning dependents, the callousness to all sense of 
shame induced by party connexion and party hostility, are 
quite sufficient to explain the worst practices of the period, and 
they belong to the aristocratic fully as much as to the princely 
times. Assassination itself, the most atrocious feature in the 
aspect of the age, can never be a more natural product of any 
soil than of that in which slavish obedience to a master always 
in sight affords boundless supply of ready tools, and a selfish- 
ness fostered from the cradle makes every rival be regarded not 
merely as an enemy, but a wrongdoer. 

The constant agitation, however, in which these states were 
kept by their factions, their wars, and their rivalry with each 
other, both during the existence of their popular constitutions, 
and especially during the period which immediately succeeded 
under their first princes, had the effect of drawing forth genius, 
and promoting acquirements of every kind. The fourteenth 
century was distinguished from all that had preceded since the 
Augustan age, by its able statesmen and commanders, its culti- 
vation of the fine arts, and the great works of architecture 
which it left, and which continue still the admiration of man- 
kind. A more melancholy proof could hardly be given of the 
degree to which genius and activity may be perverted to use- 
less, or even mischievous purposes, and of the possible discon- 
nexion between the successful pursuit of the arts or of letters 
and the happiness of mankind. Succeeding ages have profited 
incalculably by the genius, the learning, and the taste which 
were awakened in those days ; but the bulk of the people have 



CH. XXIII.] 



ARTS AND LETTERS. 



309 



seldom been more miserable than the contemporaries of Dante 
and Petrarch, Giotto and Cimabue ; while the great capacity of 
the Viscontis and the Scalas was the curse of their own age, and 
only benefited posterity by the patronage which men of letters 
obtained from their vanity, or from their policy of amusing the 
people whom they enslaved. 



10 [ch. XXIV. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

GOVERNMENT OF GENOA. 



Early History — Pisan Alliances and Conquests — Constitution of 1096 — Aristocracy — 
Parties of the Nobles — Podesta — Turbulence of the Factions — Constant Revolutions 
— Companies of Arts — Credenza — Oligarchy established — Abate — Capitano del Po- 
polo — W. Boccanegro's Usurpation — Genoese Fickleness and Factions — Party 
movements and Civil conflicts — Viscontis called in — Perpetual Revolutions — New 
Nobility; their Power; their Factions — Conflict with the old — Revolutions — French 
Conquests — Andrew Doria — Spanish Conquest — Doria's noble Conduct and Re- 
forms — Final Aristocratic Constitution — Attempts to extinguish Party — Alberghi 
— New Factions — Councils — Doge — Syndics — Inquisitors — Judicial Administra- 
tion — Galling yoke of the Aristocracy — Folly of the new Nobles and Plebeians — Oli- 
garchical periods — Comparison of Genoese and Venetian Governments — Oligarchy 
of Genoese settlements. 

Although the Genoese were not, like the Venetians, entirely 
separated from the Gothic, Lombard, and French monarchies, 
they were nevertheless much less connected with, and dependent 
upon, those conquerors than any other inland people in the north 
of Itaty. This exemption they owed partly to their situation, 
which was protected by the Apennines towards the land, and by 
the sea on the other side ; but they owed it in great part also to 
their poverty. Until the ninth century, when they had made 
considerable progress in commerce, they displayed little to invite 
a conqueror ; their land and their waters were equally unpro- 
ductive ; and their magnificent harbour was really the only ad- 
vantage which they could be said to derive from nature. Hence 
when the Lombards took possession of Genoa, they did not use 
much pains to maintain a strict dominion over it ; and though it 
was formed into a county by Charlemagne, and conferred by 
Pepin upon his kinsman Ademar's family, who thus held it for 
about a century, it asserted its independence upon the fall of the 
Carlovingian monarchy, deposed the counts, and formed a re- 
publican government, upon the model which was followed by 
most of the Italian commonwealths in the dark ages. About the 
middle of the tenth century it had been taken and pillaged by 



CH. XXIV.] EARLY GENOESE CONSTITUTION. 311 

the Saracens ; but had soon expelled them, and taken revenge, 
by joining with Pisa in an attack upon their colony of Sardinia, 
the sovereignty of which was given to the Pisans by the terms 
of their treaty of offensive alliance, the Genoese reserving the 
whole of the booty resulting from the combined operations. 
The possession of the island, however, was subsequently a bone 
of contention between the two states, and the Genoese frequently 
had a footing in it. Of Corsica they became possessed at the 
beginning of the eleventh century, and retained it till the latter 
part of the eighteenth, when it was given up to Prance. 

The constitution adopted in 1096 vested the supreme power 
in a senate of nobles, or rather in consuls chosen by and out of 
the senate ; for the senate appears to have been a council of 
these magistrates, and, if we may judge by the rare mention of 
it in early Genoese histories, a council of no great authority. 
The number of the consuls varied from four to six, and they 
were at first chosen for three or four years; but in 1122 the 
office was made annual ; and soon after they were divided into 
two classes, the one class having only the functions of supreme 
judges. When this division took place, the number of the con- 
suls was increased; for those who had the political authority 
continued to be sometimes four and sometimes six in number. 
They exercised very extensive powers, having the whole executive 
government in their hands, unless when, upon important occasions, 
they assembled the people in a General Assembly or Parliament. 
They commanded the forces, superintended the execution of the 
laws, corresponded with foreign powers, and managed the ex- 
penditure of the revenues, rendering an account of their dis- 
bursements to the general assembly when they quitted office. 
The care of making alterations in the laws devolved upon com- 
missioners especially appointed for the purpose, and called cor- 
rectors (correttori) 9 twelve or fifteen in number, and lawyers by 
profession ; but their office appears to have consisted mainly in 
adopting and applying the principles of the Roman law. Any 
constitutional changes were the work of the consuls and the 
people, influenced no doubt by the lawyers, who always had 
much weight, and always leant towards the arbitrary doctrines of 
the Roman imperial code. The judicial consuls were chosen by 
the seven companies (some accounts represent them as six, some 
as eight) into which the commoners were divided, and each ad- 



312 GOVERNMENT OF GENOA. [cH. XXIV. 

ministered justice to the body that appointed him. Each of the 
six quarters of the town chose likewise an officer called captain, 
who was considered as bound to protect the commons of the 
quarter like a tribune ; for the jealousy of the nobles began to 
operate at a very early period, and not without cause. 

From the earliest time, the senators, the consuls, and all func- 
tionaries of any importance, were taken from the nobles ; and 
their ambition produced its wonted effects : they formed parties 
under the more powerful families, each desiring to obtain the 
undivided power by engrossing all offices, and especially by ex- 
clusively holding the consulships. The earliest division of this 
sort which is recorded was that of the avogadi and castri (or 
castellt), which went so far that the consuls were obliged to in- 
terfere, and allow them a time and place for terminating their 
differences by arms. When, however, the hostile meeting was 
to have taken place, the archbishop, with the aid of the magis- 
trates and the urgent entreaties of the people, prevailed upon 
the partisans to lay aside their animosity and swear to keep the 
peace. A government so feeble as against the nobles and their 
parties could manifestly not expect that such a pacification would 
long endure. Accordingly the history of Genoa for ages pre- 
sents a constant succession of violent scenes, from the outrages 
of the noble families and their adherents in their struggles for 
power, and their mutual efforts to gratify their revenge. The 
feature which all these conflicts present of the successful party 
not only driving their adversaries from the country, but rasing 
their houses to the ground, indicates that each noble had fortified 
his mansion, and that the civic nobility, if they had fewer re- 
tainers than the feudal barons in the country districts, had as 
many castles. 

At the time when the singular pacification was effected to 
which we have referred, the republic had been for about 
fifty years continually engaged in wars with the Pisans and 
the Barbary Corsairs. A universal relaxation had been the 
result, from the attention and the exertions of the government 
being so constantly directed to the foreign service of the state. 
The magistrates had no longer any authority; the multitude 
was turbulent and rebellious ; all police was at an end ; disbanded 
soldiers in troops robbed upon every highway. The senate, as a 
last resource, sent for three hundred regular troops to perform 



CH. XXIV.] FACTIONS AND TURBULENCE. 313 

the duties of policemen, and appointed three commissioners to 
bring malefactors to trial and punish them summarily. The 
severe examples which they made had the effect of restoring 
obedience to the laws ; but the nobles and their adherents con- 
tinued to set all law at defiance in their mutual contentions. 
About this period the intolerable evils of such a state of things 
gave rise to the substitution of a podesta for the consuls, he 
being a foreigner, chosen for a year, and almost always a man of 
rank and of some influence in his own country ; he was attended 
by two lawyers and by two gentlemen of the degree of knights, 
whom he brought with him. The principal advantage, however, 
in Genoa, as elsewhere, which the people derived from this 
magistrate, as compared with the native consuls,* was his having 
no party or family connexion, and being chosen only for a 
year, and without the possibility of acquiring such influence 
as to make him, or any one else, ever think of extending 
his power or the tenure of his office. He was not only the 
chief criminal judge, but the commander of the forces. A very 
few years only elapsed before parties of the nobles began their 
attempts to restore the consulship, in order that they might have 
an opportunity of obtaining the chief power, and overturning 
the popular constitution. Thus consuls were restored in 1182. 
Then the contending parties were marshalled under the Cortes 
and Voltas : the former had such influence in the senate as to 
choose three consuls of their own house, and the latter flew to 
arms. Both these families fortified their houses, and carried on 
war openly in the streets of Genoa ; nor could anything quell 
the civil broils which were thus excited, but the war with Henry 
IV., in which the republic was soon after engaged. In the course 
of the next year the office of podesta was revived. 

It appears that the Genoese nobles early arranged themselves 
into companies as the artisans did in other towns. Of these 
companies there were generally eight, each of which chose one 
councillor and a member of the credenza, whose office continued 
for a year. Its office was to assist, and of course to control, the 
podesta in his executive functions, and to superintend the 
revenue and expenditure of the state. This council was the 
only body which possessed any real power ; the popular assembly 

* When mention is made of the consular office being abolished, the political and not 
the judicial consuls are alone meant. The latter (consoli dei placiti) were always re- 
tained. 



314 GOVERNMENT OF GENOA. [CH. XXIV. 

was only convoked occasionally, and never except by the exe- 
cutive government, seldom by that, unless in some pressing 
emergency of public affairs ; but the council was always in 
operation. The eight companies appear to have excluded all 
the families which had not been originally enrolled in one or 
other of them. Hence an oligarchy was in reality established, 
and the result took place which we have always observed in such 
cases; the excluded nobles could not brook the monopoly of 
their brethren and peers, and were disposed to take part with 
the commoners in attacking them. Several attempts were made 
without success to destroy the oligarchical system ; and in 1 227 
a formidable conspiracy formed with this design failed. The 
select body being of the Guelf party, the Ghibellines aided their 
brethren, who were the excluded part of the aristocracy, and 
the civil war of parties was complicated with the less pernicious 
malady of foreign invasion. But the Guelf and the oligarch 
prevailed. It must be added, however, that the people had 
always an officer, called the abate, to watch over their rights and 
interests ; he had a kind of tribunitian power, and was elected 
by themselves. The origin of his office was the usurpation of 
Doria and Spinola as captains of liberty in 1270. To gratify 
the plebeian party and keep them quiet, they gave them this 
functionary. At length the people were induced to take an 
active part against the oligarchy. The excluded nobles pre- 
vailed on them to rise, and one of that class, William Boccanegro, 
who had played the part of a demagogue against his own order, 
was, in the heat of the sedition, chosen captain or podesta of 
the people (cajritano del popolo), a new office, and which at a 
later period proved destructive of all liberty in other republics, 
as we have already seen. They gave him, however, a council of 
thirty- two anziani, or senators, four from each company ; and if 
these were taken from the company of nobles, and not from the 
commons in their eight quarters, the proceeding must be ad- 
mitted to have been of a very moderate and judicious kind. 
However, whether the council thus appointed was of the select 
body or not, their proceedings were framed upon the plan of the 
whole revolution which had been effected, and were dictated by 
its spirit ; for they immediately declared the captain's office to 
be for ten years, settled upon him a revenue of a thousand golden 
florins (equal to twice as many pounds of our money), gave him 
a body guard, beside an establishment of officers, and placed the 



CH. XXIV.] BOCCANEGRO FACTIONS. 315 

office of annual podesta at his disposal, that functionary's powers 
being now, in consequence of the captain's prerogative, reduced 
to those of chief civil and criminal judge. 

Boccanegro soon began to grasp at still larger power ; to ex- 
tend his salary, increase his guards, and govern without the least 
regard to his council. But he also excluded the nobles from all 
places of trust and authority, and this raised a conspiracy against 
him, in which the people deserted their champion to join with 
their adversaries. After having been five years in office he was 
driven from it, and the old government was restored. The 
oligarchy therefore was continued ; and among the families who 
had any real power, jfour only are to be named, the Dorias, 
Spinolas, Grimaldis, and Fieschis. All the companies could 
belong to the council and could choose their representative in 
that body ; but the families who alternately governed the re- 
public were those four. The two former, being Guelf, generally 
were found combined, as were the two latter, being Ghibellines. 
But frequently one affected, and for a season obtained, supreme 
power, sometimes as captain of the people, sometimes as consul, 
and then the other would join the opposite faction; and all on 
both sides would appeal to the people. On one occasion, 1291, 
by the consent of the party who held the office of captain, the 
government was changed ; that office, being made annual, was 
declared only tenable, like that of podesta, by a foreigner ; and a 
provision was added that equal numbers of nobles and plebeians 
should always be placed in the other offices. The changes, 
and factions, and civil dissensions of Genoa, the turbulence of 
the nobles, and the fickleness of the people during the thirteenth 
century became proverbial, and were regarded, even in Italy, as 
a thing wholly without example. 

But the fourteenth century opened with a scene unprecedented 
even at Genoa, and to which we may safely defy the whole his- 
tory of party to produce a match for its baseness and its folly, 
much as we have been accustomed to see party movements con- 
ducted on similar principles within the very narrow limits 
assigned to the enormities of modern faction. The Doria, or 
Spinola party, having gained the mastery over the Grimaldi and 
Fieschi, soon quarrelled about the sole possession of the prize — 
the supreme power. They went to war, and the Spinola had 
the advantage ; whereupon both the Grimaldi and Fieschi took 
part with the Doria ; and proving too strong for them, and after 



316 GOVERNMENT OF GENOA. [CH. XXIV. 

their united efforts had defeated and banished the Spinola, the 
Doria, too, retired and left the field to the other two. The Do- 
ria and Spinola were thus, in consequence of their former joint 
success, in joint defeat and exile — for in the Italian party wars, 
defeat always involving military overthrow, implied the banish- 
ment of the survivors. Their common misfortune brought them 
again together, and they signalized their coalition by calling in 
foreign assistance, as did their successful antagonists : the one 
sending for Visconti, the other for the King of Naples, to whom, 
jointly with the Pope, the people were pleased to give the lord- 
ship of the republic for ten years ; and the Visconti and see of 
Rome accordingly named them lieutenant-governors of Genoa as 
soon as the war was ended. This happened in 133 1 ; and whether 
it be that a thirteen years' civil war, with foreign interference, 
had wholly exhausted the patience of the people — or that the 
Doria and Spinola parties, when exercising the office of joint 
captains, insisting to choose the abate, a plain usurpation upon 
the Commons, was a degree of tyranny not to be borne — or that 
a patrician faction inimical to the oligarchy was, as on the former 
occasion of the first captain's appointment, at the bottom of the 
movement — in 1338 a sedition was begun at Savona, where the 
nobles were all driven away, and two captains chosen, with a 
council of twenty mariners, and this sedition spread immediately 
to Genoa, where the multitude chose Simon Boccanegro, first as 
their abate; and when he objected that, his family being noble, 
he could not legally hold the tribunitian office, he was by accla- 
mation created doge, with almost absolute power ; and by his 
great decision and firmness, as well as the justice and moderation 
of his government, he appeared to justify this extraordinary pro- 
ceeding. 

But he had removed all the nobles from office, and that body 
soon began to plan his overthrow. It was not, however, till 
1344 that they could bring together a force sufficient to defeat 
him. He at first agreed to such a change in the government as 
placed the whole power in the hands of a council, composed of 
half nobles and half commons. But he was then compelled to 
resign, and he removed to Pisa. A doge who united both patri- 
cians and plebeians in his favour was then chosen ; but the Spi- 
nolas took arms and fortified themselves in the suburbs and on 
the hills, many of the people taking part with them. A sedition 
against the nobles again began at Savona, and again extended 



CH. XXIV.] CRIMES OF PARTY. 317 

itself to the capital. The doge, with the concurrence of the 
people, banished all the senators of noble family, and ordered 
a general disarming of the patricians by a search in all their 
houses. Both parties now agreed that all their differences 
should be submitted to the arbitration of Visconti, then lord of 
Milan ; and he awarded that all the exiled nobles, with one or 
two exceptions, should be recalled. 

Soon after this transaction the Genoese fleet sustained a general 
and nearly fatal defeat in Sardinia, in the war against the Pisans 
and Catalans. The courage of the people was completely cut 
down, and all the attempts of the Florentine allies to make them 
bear up against the blow were ineffectual. The whole commu- 
nity appeared utterly disheartened ; and when the senate, calling 
together an assembly of the people, proposed to place the re- 
public under the protection of Yisconti, the measure was received 
with unanimous and hearty assent. Visconti readily accepted 
the office, dethroned the doge, and appointed a governor. The 
senate next year chose his nephew to succeed him ; and the 
Viscontis having exasperated the nobles by their arbitrary pro- 
ceedings, the people joined in restoring the former government, 
and Boccanegro was brought back as doge from the exile in 
which he had lived for fifteen years. 

It would answer no good purpose to follow the dull, monoto- 
nous course of the Genoese revolutions, which generally ended 
in giving power to a foreign state ; and always evinced, both in 
the conflicting factions of the patricians and in the unsparing 
and unprincipled hatred of the people towards the nobles, an 
utter disregard of all duty to the country, and a constant readi- 
ness to sacrifice at one time the liberties of the community, at 
another time its independent existence, for the poor satisfaction 
of gaining some triumph over an adversary, or exalting a friend 
at his expense ; a degree of baseness hardly exceeded by those 
wretched beings who in other countries have been found capable 
of plunging their country into all the horrors of war that their 
hold of place might be made more secure, or their spleen be 
gratified by heaping difficulties upon the heads of their adver- 
saries and successors.* 

* One example, but not a solitary example of this worst enormity of faction, has 
been more than once referred to in this work, namely, the Spanish war in Walpole's 
time. 



:>1S GOVERNMENT OF GBNO A. [cH.XXlY. 

Nor was the profligate game of party played by the old nobi- 
lity alone. The frequent expulsion of these nobles from office, 
sometimes even from the dominions of the republic, led the way 
to many wealthy families of the commons rising into importance. 
They filled offices of trust; they acquired influence in the ma- 
nagement of public affairs ; they were regarded as noble fami- 
lies ; but they were considered as a new or inferior nobility ; 
and their conflicts with the others were natural enough; but also 
they imitated these others in soon raising conflicts among them- 
selves ; and the Adorni and Fregosi families were as much dis- 
tinguished for their contentions as the Dorias and the Grimaldis, 
the Spinolas and the Fieschis. In truth, the new nobles were 
originally the Natural Aristocracy ; but as soon as they obtained 
a preponderance, they were bent upon excluding all other classes, 
both the old nobles and the common people. Hence from the 
time of Boccanegro being made doge, in the middle of the four- 
teenth century, the old nobles were excluded from all offices ; 
but the plebeians were never chosen. The new nobles held 
every place exclusively, from that of doge downwards, excepting 
during the occasional changes which followed different attempts 
of the old nobles to establish a tyranny, when a compromise 
generally took place, and a council, sometimes of twelve, some- 
times of twenty-four, was instituted, with the provision that one^ 
half should be noble and one-half plebeian — that is, nobles of the 
new or plebeian houses. 

When the supreme power was given up to the Duke of Milan, 
chiefly with the view of restraining the factions, the republican 
constitution was retained, a treaty being made which provided 
that half the magistrates should be taken from each order. In 
1499 the French overran the duchy of Milan, and annexed it to 
their crown. Genoa was transferred with it as a kind of ap- 
panage, and under stipulations similar to those which had been 
made with Milan. The power of the Grand Duke had been 
effectual in keeping down the factions ; he had, generally speak- 
ing, observed the conditions of the treaty, and had held the 
balance even between the conflicting orders. But when a French 
governor was substituted for a Milanese the case was widely 
different. All the leaning was towards the nobles, whose inso- 
lence broke out more intolerably than ever. Their contempt for 
the new families led to constant insults and breaches of the peace. 



CH. XXIV.] REVOLUTIONS FRENCH INFLUENCE. 319 

No redress was afforded by the courts of justice, because the 
order of the wrongdoers formed always one-half of the mem- 
bers, and took part against the injured party. The governor 
leant in the same direction. The nobles were even found to 
carry daggers with a motto indicating at once their bitter feel- 
ing towards the other class, and the use to which the instrument 
was destined — (castiga vilani) " chastise the plebeians." This 
state of things became intolerable; and in 1507 a revolt was 
the consequence. The body of the people took part with the 
new nobles, and the result was that their terms were granted 
— the chief of which was that, as they outnumbered the old 
nobility two to one, one-third only of the magistracies, in- 
cluding the places in the council or senate, should be filled 
by the old nobility, and the remaining two-thirds by the other 
orders. The new nobles, however, immediately claimed the 
whole of this proportion for themselves, excluding the real 
commoners altogether. Hence these now revolted, claiming 
their share as against both classes of nobles. Although they 
were opposed by the new nobles, they completely defeated 
the old, and drove them from the country. The consequence 
was their obtaining the right to choose for themselves eight 
tribunes as guardians of their rights. The King of France 
? (Louis XII.) confirmed all the concessions which both the 
new nobles and the commons had thus extorted from his lieu- 
tenant, but upon condition that the fiefs and castles of the 
Fieschi family which had been taken should be restored. The 
new nobles agreed to this ; the commons strenuously opposed 
it, and further insisted upon measures being adopted for seiz- 
ing Monaco, the fortress of the Grimaldis, and which had 
been by them made the shelter of pirates who infested those 
seas. The popular leaders, flattering themselves with the hope 
of obtaining assistance from Rome and from the Emperor, 
persuaded the people to refuse all accommodation with Louis, 
to throw off his authority, and to choose a doge. Left to them- 
selves and panic-struck, they were entirely overthrown ; the 
French king, beside putting the doge and many of the revolters 
to death, and levying heavy contributions on the city, burnt the 
charters and treaties containing its privileges, restored the for- 
mer equal division of the magistracy between the two orders, 
and put an end to the appointment of popular tribunes. 



320 GOVERNMENT OF GENOA. [CH. XXIV. 

In 1522 the Emperor, Charles V., succeeded in surprising the 
town, and it was subjected to the most cruel and unsparing pil- 
lage of which even Spanish troops are capable. But five years 
after, notwithstanding the heavy loss which the French had 
sustained at the fatal battle of Pavia, they were enabled, chiefly 
by the skill and courage of Andrew Doria, their most famous 
admiral, to regain possession of Genoa. This eminent person, 
how illustrious soever his name has become, was in truth a naval 
condottiero. He was a distinguished member of the great Doria 
family, but had early entered into the service of various foreign 
princes, and being possessed of several galleys, or ships of war, 
had latterly hired himself and them to Francis I., who was then 
engaged in his memorable war with Charles V. The term of 
Doria's service expired in 1528 ; and they who would find excuses 
for his conduct, which he never could himself even profess to 
approve or defend, have said that he refused to renew his en- 
gagements because France had broken faith with his country, 
and that he was resolved to restore her free constitution. But 
the fact is unquestioned that he had borne arms, if not against 
her, yet against the power which had become possessed of her 
territory; and that in this warfare he had reduced her by a 
blockade, that is, by endeavouring to starve her people, his fel- 
low-citizens. The fact is equally unquestioned that this success 
restored her to the dominion of the very prince whose breach of 
faith with her is the alleged ground of quitting his service ; nor 
did he, when thus instrumental in effecting the restoration, seek 
to impose any terms upon those whom he had made the con- 
querors of his native country. It might well have been ex- 
pected, that the same desire to restore her liberties which is 
given as the ground of his proceedings in 1528, should have 
actuated his conduct in 1 527. Again, it is not denied that, when 
he sent his envoy to announce his withdrawing from the French 
service, he not only gave the breach of faith as his ground of com- 
plaint, but the arrears of pay due to himself; and that, like a true 
condottiero, he put the payment of those arrears in the front of 
the conditions upon which he again tendered his services. The 
stipulation of an ample pay (60,000 florins a-year) was in like man- 
ner coupled with the restoration of the Genoese constitution in 
his offer to the emperor, who readily accepted the terms; and partly 
by Doria's fleet, partly by the co-operation of the Genoese them- 



CH. XXIV.] ANDREW DORIA. 321 

selves, the French were expelled and the Spaniards admitted, 
whose sacking of the city he had, during the whole course of the 
war while fighting against them, never forgiven, refusing to 
make any Spaniards prisoners of war, but sending all he took to 
the galleys. 

Here ends the blameable or equivocal part of this great man's 
conduct. Nothing could be more truly noble and disinterested 
than all that followed. The constitution, with important amend- 
ments, was, under his auspices, restored. He refused all the 
offers of the emperor, who, averse to popular, even to aristocratic 
government, urged him to accept the principality into which he 
offered to erect Genoa for him ; and when the office of doge was 
once more established, and all voices joined in beseeching him 
to accept it, he declined, recommending that it should no longer 
be conferred for life, but only for two years. He passed the 
rest of his days, prolonged to an extreme old age, among his 
countrymen, universally esteemed and beloved, and, in all the 
emergencies of their affairs, respectfully consulted. His liberal 
spirit, notwithstanding all his opportunities of amassing wealth, 
prevented him from leaving any considerable fortune ; and so 
entirely did he hold himself to be at the service of the state, that 
he took the command of its fleet in one of its wars at the age of 
eighty- five, and was in his ninetieth year when he finally re- 
signed the command of the Spanish navy.* 

The constitution as it was now remodelled, with some mate- 
rial changes made in 1576, continued to govern the Genoese 
commonwealth, until it was finally subverted in 1799 by the 
French invasion. It was framed by twelve functionaries, styled 
Reformers of the Law (Riformatori) , who had been appointed 
to suggest amendments of the law, and to effect a general recon- 
cilement of the contending factions the year before, when the 
French, under Doria, obtained possession of the country. The 
French government had thrown no impediment in the way of 
their judicial labours, and the changes which they proposed in 

* It may be observed that the reason he gave for refusing the dogeship was his wish 
to continue in the Spanish command, which he thought incompatible with that high 
office ; and some may conceive that the old condottiero habit here again broke out. The 
cruel punishment of the Fieschi conspirators has also been laid to his charge ; but the 
murder of his favourite nephew and heir, the intended murder of himself by that in- 
famous gang, and the general habit of the age as to severe inflictions in such cases, must 
be taken as a great palliative of this guilt. 

PART II. Y 



322 GOVERNMENT OF GENOA. [CH. XXIV. 

the constitution upon its restoration, were adopted by the Spanish 
government acting under Doria's advice when the French were 
succeeded by the emperor. 

The fundamental provision by which the factions were to be 
united, and their conflicts terminated, consisted in abrogating the 
exclusion of the patrician or old noble party, opening all the 
offices and honours in the state to all alike, that is, to all the 
nobles, whether old of the year 1338, or new, and distributing 
the whole body, without distinction of title, name, or party, into 
twenty-eight alherghi; each family which had six houses occu- 
pied by its members, or adopted adherents, being reckoned an 
afbergo. Among these twenty- eight all the others were dis- 
tributed, so as to mingle Guelfs and Ghibellines, patrician and 
plebeian nobles, in the same albergo, and to sink their names in 
those of the family to which they were enrolled. Two names 
were wholly suppressed, those of the Adorni and Fregosi, whose 
contests had so bitterly divided the republic for the last hundred 
years. From very early times there had always been a practice 
among the noble houses of adopting others into their own circle, 
and making them, as it were, members of their own families. 
The object of this was evidently to increase the number of their 
adherents ; and the resemblance of the system to that of the 
ancient clientela would at once present itself, were it not repulsed 
by the consideration that the adopted families were of distinction, 
and, though only of plebeian degree, yet of wealth sufficient to 
rank them with the adopting houses. The adopting family was 
termed albergo, the inn ; and not only gave protection to the 
other, but communicated its name and as much of its privileges 
as the law permitted. It was upon this old practice that the 
Biformatori now built their strange plan of exterminating par- 
ties ; and, as well might be expected, if it put an end to old, it 
gave rise, before long, to new divisions. The old parties might 
easily be abolished, because they were marshalled according to 
names and persons, the factions having no distinguishing prin- 
ciples, and not even pretending to adopt any, as their successors 
have often done in modern times to conceal their selfish and per- 
sonal views, which formed the real bond of their union. Con- 
tention, and even civil war again broke out between the old and 
new nobles, while the people murmured at being excluded from 
nil share in the government ; and before half a century had 






CH. XXIV. ] NEW AND FINAL CONSTITUTION. 323 

elapsed, the names of the alberghi were abolished, and each 
family resumed its own. The great council, too, or the chief 
senate, which in 1528 had been formed of the whole nobles in 
rotation, four hundred sitting each year, was now composed of 
all who had been inscribed in the Libro d'Oro (or Golden Book), 
and were twenty-two years old. The number of those families 
was about one hundred and seventy: but the senate had the 
power of adding ten yearly, seven from the city, three from the 
country, provided the heads were persons of a similar station and 
fortune to those of the nobles ; a power which, of course, was 
rarely exercised, and then only by elevating elderly persons who 
had no children, and were not likely permanently to increase 
the numbers of the ruling body. They also added a number of 
persons in needy circumstances, who became mere dependents 
upon the wealthier class. 

To this body belonged the choice of the lesser senate, or 
council of two hundred, the doge, the councillors of the signory, 
sometimes called also governors (rettori), and the procurators 
of the town (procuratori di commune). The governors were 
originally eight, and afterwards twelve. The procurators were 
equal in number, with the addition of those who had been 
doges, being those who had immediately before been governors. 
All these offices were held for two years, except that the doge 
became procurator for life, if no charge was proved against him 
upon quitting his office. He could not be re-elected doge for 
ten years, nor could the governors till after an interval of five. 
It thus happened that the members of the doge's council were 
partly in office for two years, partly for four, and partly for life. 
The doge's election was complicated, as at Venice, though much 
less so : that of the governors was by thirty electors, whom the 
great council appointed, and who selected one hundred and 
twenty names, from which twelve were taken by lot. 

The government was in the hands of the lesser council, and 
the doge's council, sometimes called the Signoria, though the 
Signoria, properly speaking, formed only a part of it. The great 
council could alone levy new taxes, or make any fundamental 
changes in the constitution ; but it was only called together by 
the Signoria on extraordinary emergencies, the lesser council 
having the power of making peace and war, and even of making 
laws, provided they did not alter the constitution of 1576, and 

y 2 



321 GOVERNMENT OF GENOA, [CH. XXIV. 

were agreed to by two -thirds of the voices. Inferior magistrates 
were also chosen by this body ; and where the senate is men- 
tioned, we may in general assume the lesser council or lesser 
senate to be meant. The Signoria, or doge's council, possessed 
all the other powers of the executive government, conducting 
foreign affairs, receiving ambassadors, superintending the execu- 
tion of the laws, providing for the peace of the country, and 
managing all its financial, and all its military and naval con- 
cerns. 

The power of the doge was even less than that of his brother 
at Venice, if less can well be imagined. He had no patronage 
at all, and was watched by two governors, who were obliged to 
live with him in his palace. He had, however, a body-guard ; 
and before the surrender of Corsica, he wore a crown and carried 
a sceptre. His representation was somewhat greater than that 
of the Venetian phantom ; but he was only addressed by the 
somewhat homely title of " Messire Dnge" though by a kind of 
mockery he was called "Most serene and illustrious Prince.^ 
Like the doge at Venice, he presided in all councils, and in all 
had a double or casting vote — a privilege of very little value in 
bodies so numerous and so constituted. Eight days were allowed 
after his office expired for bringing any charges against him ; 
and, like all other magistrates, he was subject to the inquiry of 
the censors or syndics. These officers were appointed for four 
years, and were five in number: beside the functions just men- 
tioned, and in which they resembled the Athenian censors (lo- 
gist(z), their duty was to watch generally over all violations of 
the law, and especially of the constitution. It was a tribute of 
respect to Doria that he alone was made censor for life. There 
were seven Inquisitors of State, whose duties were nearly the 
same as those of the Venetian inquisitors, but who had not the 
same absolute power : they exercised a vigilant superintendence, 
even by spies in families, but could only act through the courts 
of justice, or, in extraordinary cases, through the signory. * 

The administration of criminal justice was committed to the 
podesta, or foreigner, as we have seen : in 1576 there was added 

* There was a practice at Genoa of erecting a tablet in some conspicuous place to 
record the crimes of doges. Two singular remains of this are still to be seen in one of 
the principal streets of that city. The expressions employed to describe these magis- 
trates are sufficiently plain and homely. One is called, among many other terms of 
vituperation, " Fur magnus,"" and the other '' Latronum maximm." 






CH. XXIV.] ARISTOCRATIC OPPRESSION. 325 

the criminal rota of four foreign judges ; civil justice was admi- 
nistered also by foreigners, but of inferior rank, being doctors 
of law, in general taken from the Italian universities. From all 
these courts an appeal lay to the General Assembly, a body com- 
posed of the signory and one hundred members of the great 
council. 

The only offices which were allowed to be filled by the com- 
moners were those of the three secretaries of state : they were 
lucrative, could be held for ten years, and sometimes were con- 
tinued further; and were understood to give those who had 
held them a title to be enrolled among the nobles. 

That we may be able to understand how galling to the com- 
moners this exclusion must have proved, we have only to reflect, 
first, on the equality which the law and the habits of the country 
seemed to encourage by all ranks alike taking part in every kind 
of mercantile occupation, whether of manufactures or of foreign 
commerce ; next, on the circumstance that many families of the 
excluded class possessed ample wealth, high ecclesiastical pre- 
ferment, even feudal property, and, in virtue of their fiefs, titles 
of nobility. The patricians, whether of the old or new nobility, 
affected a superiority over those distinguished families even more 
intolerable than the mere possession of exclusive privileges and 
power ; and the insolence and the privileges of the poorer nobles 
created after Doria's revolution were, on account of their po- 
verty, more hard to bear by the respectable and wealthy plebeian 
families, who in all other respects were so greatly their superiors. 
Then these were not wise enough to disregard this conduct, or 
to pursue their own course without aping the habits of those 
who thus affected to despise them. They could afford to dis- 
play the same magnificence with the wealthiest of the patricians ; 
but with that they were not satisfied. Many of them must 
needs appear always armed and m military garb, attended with 
bravoes ready to execute any unlawful order, and even to assas- 
sinate those who were supposed to have given them offence. 
Such were reckoned the distinguishing marks of nobility in the 
sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The nobles, however, kept 
those imitators at a distance, and mortified them and their fami- 
lies by a supercilious demeanour to which the folly of the ple- 
beians and their want of proper pride lent its only sting. Sedi- 



326 GOVERNMENT OF GENOA. [CH. XXIV. 

tions and conspiracies were the consequence ; but no success 
attended them, and the government remained aristocratic, almost 
oligarchical, as before. Strictly speaking, the oligarchy had only 
existed in the earliest periods, when the old nobles excluded the 
new, and afterwards when the new excluded the old from all 
share of direct power. In the most rigorous sense, of the partial 
preference and general disqualification by law, it perhaps only 
existed from 1298 to 1319. But if the distinguished plebeian 
families holding feudal titles be regarded as nobles, the oligarchy 
continued during the remaining two centuries and a half of the 
republic's existence. 

With respect to the bulk of the people, it may seem at first 
sight that the Venetian constitution, as administered by the 
nobles, gave them less consideration than they enjoyed in the 
more turbulent republic of Genoa. There the constant factious 
dissensions rendered appeals to them frequent ; while at Venice 
the vigour of the government, repressing all or almost all party, 
confined the intrigues of the chiefs to the body of the nobles 
exclusively. The people, however, appear to have been in both 
republics treated with forbearance, exposed to few vexations by 
taxes, and seldom made the subject of direct oppression. The 
aristocracy of Genoa was not indeed so great a favourite with 
them as that of Venice : but it was patiently and even cheerfully 
submitted to, though, in all the more essential qualities of good 
government, the inferiority of Genoa was sufficiently remarkable. 
The rulers had no power of checking the disorders constantly 
produced by the factious nobles ; the police generally was very 
defective ; the great interests of the state were repeatedly sacri- 
ficed to those of the ruling class ; their contentions, beside filling 
the city with slaughter, paralysed all the efforts which could be 
made by the national force, distracted every negociation, and 
delivered up the country successively to Milan, to France, and 
to Spain. But nothing was done to outrage the feelings of the 
common people ; and all experience shows that they regard 
insult far more than injury, nay, that they have more frequently 
risen against their rulers because of some act which was calcu- 
lated to excite indignation in bystanders, and in which them- 
selves were but remotely concerned, than because of an act, or 
even any course of misgovernment, by which their most important 



CH. XXIV.] PROVINCIAL OLIGARCHY. 327 

interests were sacrificed. Thus it will always be, until they have 
learnt well their duties and their rights, and can distinguish 
between things that only offend and things that seriously hurt 
them. 

The aristocratic government of Genoa extended to her foreign 
possessions ; and however much the nobles at home were re- 
solved to preserve equality of privileges among themselves, in 
some of those settlements an oligarchy was completely esta- 
blished. The great island of Ohio was entirely governed by 
nine families, or rather branches, of the Justinianis, who excluded 
all others from a share in the administration from the middle 
of the fifteenth century. 



338 [ch. xxv. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS — MILAN. 



Consuls — Podestas — Credenza — Patricians — Plebeians — Struggles of the Orders — Ca- 
valry — Condottieri — Foreign Captain-General — Financial Dictatorship — Compa- 
nies; Credenzas; Molta — Councils — Defects of History in Political'Matters — Signor 
del Popolo — Martino della Torre — Visconti completes his usurpation — Unprinci- 
pled Conduct of both Patricians and Plebeians — Unfitness of the Lombards for Self- 
Government — Conflict of Factions — Succession of Revolutions — Visconti Family — 
Vain attempt to erect Republic — Francis Sforza — His Victories, and elevation by the 
Mob — Fickleness and baseness of the People at Milan and Placentia — Charles V. 
obtains the Sovereignty after the Sforzas. 

The most important republic founded on the mainland of Italy 
was that of Milan ; and it had taken the lead, as we have seen, 
in the struggle which lasted for so many years with the em- 
peror, having been the chief town of the great league. When 
the peace of Constance established the independence of the 
towns, although the principal point in dispute had been the re- 
fusal to give up their consuls, and be ruled by podestas of the 
emperor's nomination, the Milanese, like most of the others, 
were satisfied to have podestas ; and Frederick allowed them to 
choose their own. The war of the league had kept down the 
hostile spirit of the patricians and plebeians : but the mutual 
animosity of the two bodies revived with the peace ; and it is 
probable that the latter were willing to have the chief military 
and judicial power, an authority almost of a dictatorial nature, 
intrusted to one who could not belong to the party of the nobles ; 
for, though a noble by rank, he was always a foreigner, whereas 
the consuls were Milanese. He was only chosen, like the con- 
suls, for a year. These consuls, originally only two in number, 
were now twelve, and had no longer any military command or 
judicial authority, except that some of them acted as justices of 
the peace. They formed the executive council or credenza, and 
had the patronage of all offices and the direction of the finances, 
being classed in bodies as consuls of justice and of finance. Al- 



CH. XXV.] CONTESTS WITH THE FEUDAL NOBLES. 329 

though, the nobles and plebeians always chose them from among 
the nobles, these were anxious to avoid the party election, and 
insisted on the consuls choosing their successors, which would 
have established a regular oligarchy. But the people would 
not agree to this, and obtained a law which gave the consular 
election to a body of one hundred of the trades or artisans 
chosen at the general council or assembly of eight hundred, 
but with the condition that nobles only should be eligible. It, 
however, frequently happened that the consuls (or credenza) of 
one year were allowed to name their successors without any 
election. At the head of this aristocratic republic was the arch- 
bishop, representing the emperor ; but only nominally at its 
head. The coinage was under his authority, and justice was 
administered in his name ; but he in no way interfered with 
the podesta, who alone exercised judicial functions. 

For many years the constant struggle carried on between the 
two orders related to the appointment of the various officers in 
the state. Sometimes matters came to an open rupture, and in 
1221, when the nobles were overpowered and driven from the 
town, they fortified themselves in their castles, and being pur- 
sued thither, many were besieged, and their buildings razed to 
the ground. A general submission was the consequence. But 
again the nobles appear to have gotten the upper hand, and to 
have had exclusive possession of all places, civil, military, and 
ecclesiastical. A new war against them was the result ; and by 
the peace of Ambrogio it was provided that all offices, from the 
highest to the lowest, should be divided between the nobles and 
the commons. It is probable that no distinction was ever made 
between the feudal nobility and those who had been raised to 
distinction in the towns, and had no strongholds in the adjoining 
districts, but had acquired wealth and importance from com- 
merce. As always happens in such cases, they were sure to 
take part with the remains of the ancient nobility in any contest 
with the commonalty. Whensoever conflicts took place beyond 
the precincts of the town, the nobles being generally mounted 
as well as their vassals, in an age when the cavalry decided the 
fate of every battle, they almost always had the advantage ; but 
in the towns, the people could always defeat them by barricading 
the streets, and by attacking from the houses. 



330 GOVERNMENT OF MILAN. [CH. XXV. 

About the middle of the thirteenth century, however, a great 
change took place in the mode of conducting hostilities; and this 
change was productive of very important consequences to the 
parties which divided Milan, as well as those of all the other 
commonwealths. A class of men, as we have seen (Part n., 
Chap, xxiv.), had arisen, formed by the perpetual wars every- 
where waged ; they devoted themselves to military pursuits, and 
were banded together under captains who made a profession of 
hiring out their services indiscriminately to all who would pay 
them. In the rare case of peace, or of any other event which 
threw them out of employment, the chiefs were not perhaps 
always captains of banditti; but their followers were universally 
of that description, and the numberless robbers who haunted all 
the forests of Germany and Italy furnished the greater part of 
the troops serving under those hirelings or condottieri. The 
towns which had hitherto been unable to send any available 
forces, that is, any heavy cavalry, into the field without the aid 
of their nobles, could now hire troops to carry on their wars 
with each other ; and they sometimes engaged a neighbouring 
prince, as well as a mere condottiero, to serve them in this capa- 
city. Indeed the chances were that the prince had originally 
raised himself to power by following that profession. The Mi- 
lanese, when carrying on war with Pavia in 1253, made a treaty 
with Lancia, marquess of Montferrat, by which he was to be 
their captain-general and podesta for three years ; and so much 
more did they regard their quarrel with Pavia than the party to 
which they belonged, that they thus gave the chief power in 
their commonwealth to a Ghibelline, though the commoners of 
Milan were of the Guelf party. He was allowed to act by a 
deputy in administering justice, residing himself at Montferrat, 
and commanding the forces. The nobles, who belonged to the 
Ghibelline party, could not fail to derive much influence from 
this singular arrangement. About the same time their finances 
having become so deranged that they were compelled to suspend 
the payment of the public creditor, only liquidating their debts 
by instalments in eight years, to provide the sums required a 
singular expedient was resorted to. A Bolognese, called Gozza- 
dini, was appointed financial dictator, being vested for four years 
with the power of levying whatever taxes he deemed necessary, 



CH. XXV.] POPULAR PARTIES. 331 

and in whatever manner. In order to extend his authority fur- 
ther, he was made podesta "during the last year of his office.* 
The oppression of his schemes raised a revolt, in which he was 
assassinated by the mob ; a sufficient proof that his imposts were 
of a kind to spare the upper classes. The greater part of them 
were however continued.! Another act of nearly equal folly 
was committed by the popular government, and about the same 
time. To show their respect for the pope, Innocent the Fourth, 
who visited Milan in 1251, and prove themselves devoted Guelfs, 
they allowed him to name the podesta for next year ; yet this 
was but two years before they chose Lancia, a noted Ghibelline, 
for their chief. 

The numbers of which the noble families were composed, and 
who always acted in concert, gave them a weight which the 
commons did not possess. To counterbalance this, the people 
formed themselves into companies or societies; and of these 
there were two, more important than all the others, and on 
which these others became in some sort dependent. The one 
was called the company of the Credenza, and, contrary to what 
from its name might be supposed, it consisted of the inferior 
artisans, and allied itself with the populace. The other was 
called the company of the Motta, consisting of the better kind 
of artisans, and it leant towards the aristocracy. 

These companies chose magistrates or leaders of their own 
for the purpose of watching the chiefs of the state. The nobles, 
joined by the motta, had their podesta Sorresina; the people, 
represented more truly by the credenza, had theirs, Martino 
de la Torre, a professed demagogue. Each order appears to 
have given unlimited powers to the podesta or leader of its own 
nomination, and to have appointed him, not annually, but once 
for all ; whereas the real podesta had powers defined by law, 
beside being only in office for a year. The nobles appear to 
have had two councils, one of the Vavasors or lesser nobles, the 
other of the higher, or capitani, who, with the archbishop as 

* If, as is said, he was appointed in 1250, and if the agreement with Lancia was 
made in 1 253, the latter could only have begun to exercise his office of podesta in 1254, 
as Gozzadini was podesta during his fourth year. 

f A finance-minister, Prina, in whom the Emperor Napoleon had great confidence, 
was put to death in a sudden revolt of the Milanese nobles about the year 1803 : they 
destroyed him with their umbrellas. Of him Napoleon once said, when discussing the 
merits of Mr. Pitt, whom he regarded as a mere financier, " Je pre/ere mon Pri?ia." 



332 GOVERNMENT OF MILAN. < II. XXV. 

president, formed the ( 'r< denza dei Gagliardi. Each of these 
councils, that is the Credenza or Credenza do St. Ambrogio for 
the commons, the Gagliardi and Vavasari for the nobles, appear 
to have made edicts or laws which were binding on their own 
members, much in the same way as the senate and comitia tri- 
buta did at Home before the period when the decrees of the latter 
acquired a general legislative force. When it was required to pass 
a law which should be binding upon the whole state, or to form any 
resolution upon a matter of universal concernment, the General 
Council or General Assembly was convoked by the podesta, and 
consisted of persons deputed from all classes of the community. 
Its numbers appear to have varied. We are told of two hun- 
dred at one time ; eight hundred at another, and as many as a 
thousand at another time. Nothing is known with any kind of 
accuracy respecting the mode of their deputation or election, or 
of the qualifications of the persons who chose or were chosen. 
As almost always happens, historians have filled their works 
with minute accounts of battles and sieges, and the cruelties of 
some chiefs and the frauds of others, with the tumults, the fickle- 
ness, and the sufferings of the people : but the system by 
which they were ruled, and out of which almost every thing 
arose that governed their fortunes, has rarely been deemed worth 
recording, more rarely still been made the subject of remark. 

The people had gained the advantage by the treaty of Ambro- 
gio; but the year after, another civil war having broken out, anew 
convention was made, by which the nobles recovered the ground 
they had lost. The military operations had been carried on in 
the country, where they generally had the mastery ; but the dis- 
sensions broke out again in the towns, and the people, having 
gained the advantage, resolved to choose a new officer, with tri- 
bunitian authority, though far more dangerous to their liberties : 
this was a protector, or lord (protettore, or signore del popolo) ; 
the first name expressing the motive and object of the appoint- 
ment, the second accurately describing its tendency and result. 
The two societies, powers, or factions, as they truly were, into 
which the commons were ranged, the Credenza and the Motta, 
would not agree in the person upon whom this important trust 
should be conferred. Each, therefore, chose its own, and the one 
of the Motta being killed a few days after, and probably also be- 
cause the Credenza were the more numerous, the greater part of 



CH. XXV.] PRINCES OBTAIN THE SOVEREIGNTY. 333 

the Motta joined the party of the nobles. The nomination of the 
Credenza prevailed in favour of Martin o della Torre, and the nobles 
with Sorresina, their podesta, were once more driven from the town 
and immediately applied for help to Ezzelino da Romano, who, 
coming to their assistance, was defeated and slain as we have 
already seen (Part 11., Chap, xxiii.). In this victory Martino bore 
a forward part at the head of the Milanese forces ; and the Mar- 
quess of Palavicino was joined with them in the campaign. He 
had long before been chosen chief or lord of Cremona, and suc- 
ceeded Ezzelino at Brescia, Novara, and other towns. Lodi now 
chose Martino for its chief, and gave him, from the smallness of 
the place, more unlimited powers than he had at Milan. The 
nobles rallied their forces to oppose the commons ; and Martino, 
with the consent of the latter, made a treaty with Palavicino, ap- 
pointing him their captain-general for five years with a large pay, 
on condition of his providing them a force of cavalry. Thus for- 
tified against the nobles, the commons defeated them, and re- 
duced eight or nine hundred of them, and their followers, to sur- 
render at discretion. The people loudly required that they should 
be put to death ; but this Martino refused, and would only allow 
them to be confined in cages, and thus exhibited for many years. 
The power of Delia Torre and his successors was greatly in- 
creased by the influence which they derived from obtaining simi- 
lar elevation, not only at Lodi, but at Como, Bergamo, Vercelli, 
in all which places the plebeian party was powerful, but chose 
Delia Torre as their chief, under the name of protecting them 
against the aristocracy, and superintending the administration of 
justice. He thus obtained in a short time as great power at 
Milan as in any of those other states, by the never-failing opera- 
tion of the imperfect federal union which we have had so many 
occasions to consider, and which we formerly fully explained 
(Part i., Chap. x.). But it was reserved for the Viscontis, by 
still further acquisitions, to complete, a few years later, the 
structure of tyranny, of the which the foundations were laid in 
the time of the Delia Torres. 

It would not be easy to find terms sufficiently strong for the 
expression of those feelings which such conduct as that of the 
Milanese must raise in every considerate mind ; and it is hard to 
say which of the two orders is the most deserving of reprobation. 
Neither of them ever gave a thought to the public interest, or to 



334 GOVERNMENT OF M1LAH. [CH. XXV 

the liberties of their country, or even to its security from foreign 
conquest : on the contrary, both appear to have been ever will- 
ing that it should submit to a master, and to have cared little for 
the risk which might be run that the master should be some 
foreign prince long known as an enemy, — some blood-thirsty 
tyrant, old in the practice of every crime, or some unprincipled 
captain of banditti, known only for the mercenary employment of 
his sword, and his gang, wherever pay was to be earned or plun- 
der obtained. The plebeian party had no kind of excuse for 
giving up the state to Delia Torre, especially after the example 
of Cremona, which had taken the Palavacinis as protectors, and 
found them tyrants, who only made a trade of leading them as 
mercenaries to foreign wars for their own profit. The step was 
taken solely with a view to party triumph. In order to gain a 
victory over the nobles, they threw away their free constitution, 
and set a tyrant over the state, willing to be enslaved themselves 
for the sake of a momentary triumph over their adversary, and to 
enjoy the base satisfaction of that adversary sharing afterwards in 
their own disgrace. The nobles had the excuse of having been 
driven from the city with every cruelty and ignominy which an 
exasperated populace, heated with its unexpected victory, and only 
half recovered from its alarm, could inflict. But to whom did they 
resort as their champion, to slake their thirst of vengeance against 
their plebeian oppressors ? To the most execrable tyrant that ever 
modern Italy had produced, so fruitful in every growth of cruelty 
and of treachery. The monster Ezzelino was the chosen instru- 
ment of their fury, and they were anxious first to punish their 
adversaries by letting loose upon them in war that fiend and his 
legion, then to destroy their country by installing him as its per- 
manent ruler. When men are so little fitted for self-government 
by their political education as to give party feelings this mastery 
over their reason — or are so blinded by their devotion to leaders 
as to play their game, unreflecting and almost unconscious instru- 
ments in their hands — or are so corrupted as to disregard all du- 
ties and all ties save those which band them together in the de- 
sperate pursuit of some factious or some sordid object — we may 
most safely pronounce them wholly unfit to be intrusted with 
political power, and may conclude that the scheme of polity is the 
best for them which confines their direct interference within the 
narrowest limits. The same feelings are raised and the same re- 



CH. XXV.] POPULAR BASENESS. 335 

marks are applicable in the case of all the other Lombard repub- 
lics. In all these was the same sacrifice of principle to party. 
The same detestable maxim, " Anything to beat an adversary," 
was the rule of conduct with the factions which distracted and 
enslaved them all. If the example of Milan is the most striking 
to show the frightful excesses that spring from such profligacy, 
it is only because the Ezzelinos and the Viscontis, the worst of 
all the chiefs who have disgraced human nature, happened to 
flourish at the time when the Milanese factions were set in array 
against one another, or because the lesser republics were visited 
with the like scourges in the shape of more obscure though hardly 
less wicked tyrants. 

Nor did the people, either nobles or commons, in a single in- 
stance, after having once given themselves a master, make any 
effectual exertion to restore the commonwealth, when they found 
that the expedient which they had adopted led to the extinction 
of their liberties. At first the Protector, or Lord of the people, 
took care to preserve the old forms of the constitution. The 
Delia Torres retained the podesta, the councils, the consuls. 
They only took care to govern themselves in the name and 
through the co-operation of these functionaries. After a while, 
the Romish see, taking advantage of the discontent excited by their 
wars and by the burdens which they laid upon the people, in- 
terfered to remove them, and to place the Viscontis in their stead. 
The people lent themselves to the intrigue and changed their 
rulers (1377), but made no effort to regain their constitution. 
Again a sedition was raised, and the Torriani family restored : 
still no effort on behalf of the people. A few years after (1302), 
when the Emperor Henry VI. made his progress through Italy, 
and the Lombard towns were everywhere gained over to his side, 
chiefly by the persuasions and intrigues of the lawyers, at Milan 
he was received with the utmost deference, and the Torriani and 
the Yisconti bid against each other for his favour, by proposing 
larger grants of money than had been originally brought forward ; 
the senate adopted the highest of the three proposals, and the 
sedition which the rival leaders then raised against Henry only 
ended in the expulsion of the Torriani, and the appointment of 
the Imperial vicars or commissaries (missi) at Milan, as in the 
other towns, to administer justice with the podestas, which they 
did in a manner far more satisfactory to the people. 

The Viscontis were now replaced in the Signory ; but in 1322 



336 GOVERNMENT OF MILAN. [CH. XXV. 

they were driven out by a sedition which the pope had fomented, 
and in which the nobles, the mob, and the ill-paid German mer- 
cenaries of the family had joined. During the few weeks that 
this change lasted, a republic was nominally formed, but the 
whole power was vested in a few of the leading nobles and Ger- 
man captains, the main authors of the change. Again the Vis- 
contis were expelled in 13*27 by an intrigue of the nobles with 
the Emperor Louis of Bavaria, and, as before, with the aid of 
their German mercenaries. A republican form was once more 
given to the government, of which the powers were nominally 
vested in a council of twenty-four, one chosen for each tribe, but 
sitting'under the presidency of the Imperial German ; and accord- 
ingly the emperor levied what taxes he pleased, and governed 
without the least regard to the people or to the shadow of a con- 
stitution which he had given them. Next year he concluded a 
bargain with the Viscontis, to restore them for a yearly sum of 
25,000 florins, and give them, with the seignory, the appoint- 
ment of Imperial vicar (missus) ; and on his quitting Italy they 
obtained once more the command of the German mercenaries, 
which enabled them to regain and greatly to extend all the power 
they had lost. 

John Galeazzo Visconti, before the end of the fourteenth cen- 
tury, was lord of all the Lombard states, from Novara to Vicenza 
in the north, and on the south to Bologna, Pisa, and Sienna. 
In 1394, and more fully in 1396, the Emperor "Winceslaus gave 
him, for the sum of 100,000 florins, the title of Duke of Milan 
and Count of Pavia, erecting all his dominions into one duchy 
and county, but not on the plan of the feudal monarchies, 
which allowed female successions : here, as in all the Ita- 
lian lordships founded by the emperors, there was no feudal 
principle introduced, and the succession was in terms limited 
strictly to male heirs. In the time of this crafty, able, and pro- 
fligate ruler, there was no chance of the republican government 
being anywhere revived; but the many reverses of fortune 
which the family had sustained in the first half of the century 
had presented repeated opportunities for the successful opera- 
tion of the republican and aristocratic spirit, had it not been 
wholly extinct. The division of his dominions among his three 
sons, the eldest of whom was only thirteen years old — the feeble- 
ness of a female regent, governing with a council of seventeen — 
the defection and mutual quarrels of the German mercenary 



CH. XXV.] ATROCITIES OF THE VISCONT1S. 337 

captains — the attacks of the emperor — the divisions of the Vis- 
conti family themselves — even the continuance of this anarchy 
for ten years — excited no more than occasionally a sedition in 
some towns, having no other object than the exchange of one 
petty tyrant's family for another; and even the detestable 
tyranny of the eldest Visconti, John Maria, exposing the people 
to all but unexampled oppression, and calculated to shock men's 
feelings even more than it embittered their sufferings, as it was 
combined with no capacity to make it really formidable, and 
might therefore have been supposed wholly impossible to be 
endured, although it ended, but after being patiently borne for 
many years, in the just and righteous assassination of the can- 
nibal himself, never seems to have awakened a thought in any 
quarter of resisting a government, which, with all its many and 
great imperfections, seemed to make the appearance of such a 
monster armed with authority impossible.* * 

At length this truly infernal family ceased to outrage the 
world : the male line failed in Philip Maria, who died in 1447, 
and for three years there was an attempt to govern Milan by 
a republican constitution. Twenty-four councillors were chosen, 
four by each of the six quarters, and their authority was limited 
to two months; and a general assembly of eight hundred was 
occasionally appealed to, as of old. Pavia, and many of the other 
Lombard towns, took a similar course, their object being to shake 
off the Milanese dominion. But in this they ultimately failed, 
as did the Milanese, to maintain their commonwealth. An able 
condottiero chief, Francis Sforza, married to J. Galeazzo's 
daughter, and once in the Milanese service, which he deserted, 
having gained some brilliant victories, and, above all, having 
stormed the important town of Placentia, next in magnitude to 

* Giovanni Maria Visconti is perhaps the only person in history who raises a doubt, 
on the claims of Ezzelino da Romano to the first place in the black catalogue of 
tyrants; but his cruel and brutal nature acted on so much more limited a scale, that 
the balance seems thus cast in Ezzelino's favour. He confined himself to the work of 
executing the laws on capital convicts, but he sentenced to death himself such as he 
chose to destroy. He generally hunted his victims with bloodhounds, who were trained 
and fed with human flesh for the purpose. The names of many gentlemen, some be- 
longing to his own family, are preserved, as having been murdered by him in this 
manner ; and they include the son of one, only twelve years old. The wretchedness 
experienced by the Lombard people, under the savage and sordid tyranny of the Ger- 
man mercenaries, during the anarchy which followed J. Galeazzo's death, exceeds all 
that can be found even in the Italian history. The Spaniards in the New World could 
alone, for avarice and cruelty, afford a match to these blood-thirsty ruffians. 
PART II. Z 



338 GOVERNMENT OF MILAN. [CH. XXV. 

Milan itself, after a long blockade, captured that capital, and 
was chosen, without any reserve or condition whatever, the lord 
of the state. At different periods of the war there is no doubt 
that he might have been successfully resisted, but for the mis- 
management of the council, which was, at two several elections, 
returned from the dregs of the people, and threw away all the 
advantages that a more respectable body had gained. The final 
surrender at discretion was partly the work of this council, and 
partly of the mob, which broke in upon and overpowered them. 
The negociation with Venice would certainly have proved fatal 
to Sforza, had the council under the patrician influence, which 
planned it, not been changed. Nor was this all : Sforza's scan- 
dalous treachery in going over to Venice with his hireling army 
had made him naturally detested by the Milanese. The ex- 
tremities to which his blockading army reduced them must have 
still further exasperated the whole people against him ; for never 
did the inhabitants of any town suffer more severely than the 
Milanese now did for months. Yet he was received on his entry 
with almost divine honours, and the enthusiasm of the multi- 
tude, whom he had only just ceased to starve, knew no bounds : 
a victorious general, always faithful to them, who should have 
defeated him and raised the blockade, could not have been more 
unanimously hailed as a deliverer by the people whom he had 
saved. So when he stormed Placentia, every house was destroyed ; 
the very floors and beams were carried away ; the inhabitants, 
beside suffering all the ordinary horrors of such a moment, were 
tortured to make them discover their treasure ; and 10,000 of 
them, including some of their principal citizens, were carried 
away and sold as slaves. The town has never since recovered 
anything like its former prosperity. But Sforza could safely ven- 
ture, without any escort, within its walls a few months after the 
horrid scene : he was well received, and chosen by acclamation 
Lord of the state. It may safely be affirmed that no aristocracy, 
such as that of Venice or Genoa, could ever have shown the 
want of firm purpose, and the fickleness towards their worst 
enemies, which thus degraded the people of Placentia and 
Milan. 

As the surrender had been absolute, and the leading men 
among the nobles, who would have obtained from Sforza some 
promise, sure enough indeed to be speedily broken, had of neces- 



CH. XXV.] TYRANNY UNRESISTED. 339 

sity yielded to the peremptory commands of the conqueror and 
the base impatience of the multitude, his power of course be- 
came equally uncontrolled with that of the Viscontis, whom he 
succeeded ; and in the next generation it produced its appointed 
fruits. The tyranny of his son, Galeazzo, made him a fit suc- 
cessor even to the Viscontis. But though a private and family 
wrong caused his assassination by one of the nobles, after a 
reign of ten years, patiently submitted to by the people, whose 
strongest feelings he daily outraged, so little disposition was 
there to change the government which had produced such mon- 
sters,, that the supreme power passed quietly to a child of eight 
years old ; and the brave men who had rid the world of this 
execrable pest were put to death with unheard-of torments. It 
is to be noted that the atrocities by which his whole life had 
been stained were of the kind ever found to exasperate the 
popular feelings most bitterly, and in all ages of the world to 
produce a greater effect in awaking men frcm the torpor induced 
by established despotism, than even the more congenial deeds of 
cruelty. Outrages upon female virtue, or other grievous displays 
of unchaste passions, have, from the times of the Greek tyrants 
and the Roman down to modern days, been very generally 
the proximate causes of revolt against power lawlessly abused, 
and have oftentimes proved effectual to this righteous end, after 
the instinct that makes men recoil from scenes of blood had 
been appealed to in vain. The people of Milan had not only 
seen their inhuman despot destroy his victims sometimes by 
feeding them on filth too disgusting to be named, sometimes by 
burning them alive, but had beheld him systematically, and by 
wholesale, subject the wives and daughters of his subjects to 
the brutal lust of his soldiery, and seen him make the shame of 
their families public to the world. Yet did not all these 
enormities suffice to revive the republican spirit, or to create the 
least desire of limiting an authority thus outrageously abused. 
The infant child of the tyrant grew up almost an idiot; the 
quarrels of his uncles for the regency, and the weakness into 
which the government fell, were all opportunities thrown away 
upon the Milanese. The state became enfeebled, but the 
crown continued powerful, by whose hands soever its powers 
were wielded : till after the country had been overrun by the 
French, and alternately a Bourbon and a Sforza had held the 

z 2 



340 



GOVERNMENT OF MILAN. 



[CH. XXV. 



sovereignty, it fell under the power of Charles V., with the rest 
of Northern Italy. It was allowed by him to remain in the last 
of the Sforza family for a large yearly rent, and on his death was 
formally seized in 1535 by that ambitious and unprincipled 
monarch. That the Milanese, who had avoided all opportunity 
of restoring the commonwealth under the weakest princes, 
should have ever harboured a thought of resistance to the com- 
pact and extensive power of Charles was of course entirely out 
of the question. 



ch. xxvi.] 341 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE. 



Florence joins the League late — Early Constitution — Consuls; Quarters; Senate — 
Burgher Aristocracy — At first mixed, then pure — Podesta established — Expelled, 
and new Government established — Old Constitution restored — New Constitution 
after Manfred's defeat — Two Councils — Party Government within the Government 
— Parallel of Jacobin Club — New Constitution — Its Anomalies and Absurdities — 
Factious Turbulence — Interferes with Justice and Police — Ordinances of Justice — 
Monstrous Provisions — Popular Aristocracy ; Popolani Grossi — Bianchi and Neri — 
Absurdities of Party — New mode of electing the Seignory — Burgher Oligarchy — 
Duke of Athens — Progress of Tyranny — Changes in the Constitution — New Party 
divisions; Natural Aristocracy — Albrizzi and Ricci — Factious Violence — Ciompi; 
Mob Government — Triumph of the Aristocratic Polity — Influence of Free Institu- 
tions — Of Democratic Government — Grandeur of Florence — Feudal and Burgher 
Economy. 

The early history of Florence resembles that of the other states 
in the northern part of Italy, except that it appears to have 
suffered very severely from the Gothic invasion. The city was 
almost entirely destroyed, and never regained its former import- 
ance till it was rebuilt by Charlemagne. The inhabitants, who, 
like all the Tuscans, have ever been an industrious and frugal race, 
applied themselves to the pursuits of trade, and were early famous 
for the excellence of their manufactures, add their expertness'in 
all the transactions of exchange. They bestowed much attention 
upon the improvement of their police and the arrangement of 
their municipal administration, but took no part in the Lombard 
League against Frederick. In 1173, his legate having prevailed 
upon many of the Tuscan barons to join him, the Florentine 
territory was ravaged by them, and the consul cast into prison. 
This determined their course, and they then joined the Tuscan 
Guelfic League, though for a long time they took no very forward 
part in its proceedings, and their magistrates rather affected 
neutrality between the Guelf and the Ghibelline factions, which 
soon divided the community. 

Their municipal government appears to have been simple, and 



342 GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE. [CH. XXVI. 

not materially different from that of the Lombard towns. The 
executive power was intrusted to consuls, who also commanded 
the forces. The city being divided into districts, or quarters, 
originally four, afterwards six, each of these chose one ; and the 
office was annual. A senate of a hundred members, likewise 
chosen yearly, formed the council of the community, and upon 
extraordinary emergencies they called together the whole people. 
But in general the government was in the hands of the consuls 
and senators, who were invariably of the higher class of burghers, 
that is, the civic nobility. The city by degrees got the better of 
the country nobles or barons, and made it expedient, if not neces- 
sary, for them to become citizens, for their protection, and to 
submit their fiefs and vassals to the civic jurisdiction. The 
government was thus a civic aristocracy, but with a certain influ- 
ence given to ihe people, and the power left to any one of becom- 
ing by his acquisition of wealth a member of the governing body ; 
nor did the aristocracy become complete till the great victory of 
the Ghibelline party in 1250. The families, from the equal dis- 
tribution of property which commercial pursuits tend to produce, 
were exceedingly numerous. All those of the same house for many 
generations continued to be regarded as forming one family; so that 
some had as many as two and even three hundred persons within 
its circle. The habits which enabled them to amass great wealth 
do not appear to have been attended during a long time with any 
taste either for luxurious indulgences or magnificent display. As 
late as the middle of the thirteenth century the manners of all 
ranks are described as of extreme and even primitive simplicity ; 
and the parsimony which Dante has satirically commemorated 
arose from the remains of those frugal and homely habits. But 
the government was actuated by a spirit of politic liberality when 
exertions were required for the public service, by undertaking 
either extensive military operations, or constructing works of 
general utility, or even of mere ornament and magnificence; and 
the splendour of the public buildings which that age has left 
forms a singular contrast with the frugality which reigned in the 
establishment of the patrician burgher, and would only suffer him 
to portion his daughter with what would make 200/. at the pre- 
sent day. 

About the same time with the other towns, in 1207, the practice 
was introduced of confiding to a foreigner, annually chosen^ and 



CH. XXVI.] CONFLICTING FACTIONS. 343 

of noble rank, the administration of criminal justice, with the 
superintendence of the civil judicature vested in subordinate 
judges, and the execution of the government or political decrees, 
as well as of his own sentences. The first podesta was a Milanese 
noble, and the consuls continued to exercise all the other func- 
tions of the municipal administration ; nor did the podesta at 
Florence interfere with the command of the forces. 

Soon after this time the first great factious divisions of the 
nobles took place. Before this period there had been very little 
violence in the disputes of the Guelfs and Ghibellines at Florence. 
Men were known to favour the one or the other side, but the 
government kept strictly neutral ; and the contest could not be 
said materially to influence the community. But now the per- 
sonal quarrel of two families, the Buundehnonti and the Uberti, 
arising from a marriage, and followed by a scuffle and an assassi- 
nation, divided the whole of the body into two parties, bitterly 
opposed to each other — all the Guelfs, to the number of forty-two 
families, joining with the Buondelmonti, and all the Ghibel- 
lines, twenty-four, taking part with the Uberti. They fortified 
their houses ; they armed their followers ; they fought in the 
streets, or besieged each other's castles, or met in single combat, 
or set assassins on one another, to the entire destruction of the 
public peace, and the interruption of all peaceful pursuits among 
those who were thus banded against each other. But as this state 
of things lasted for no less than three-and-thirty years, and as the 
progress of the community in wealth does not appear to have been 
materially obstructed, we may infer that the people at large took 
little part in the constant fray, and that the powers of govern- 
ment being in the hands chiefly of those who maintained the 
contest rendered it impossible to terminate it as long as parties 
were nearly balanced. But, upon the whole, the Guelfs suffered 
most severely, no less than thirty-six of their palaces or fortified 
towns being razed to the ground. What the Uberti wanted in 
number of families they probably made up in the strength of 
each, in their wealth, and in their retainers. They had likewise 
the support of the imperial party abroad ; and Frederick made 
at length a demonstration in their favour, which appears to have 
been decisive ; for in 1248 the government took part against the 
Guelfs, and drove them from the country. The exclusion of the 



344 GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE. [CH. XXVI 

people from all interference with the government, and the vesting 
of its whole powers in the nobles, was now completed. 

The natural consequences of this success in a community so 
constituted soon followed. First, the nobles became more over- 
bearing, and harassed the common people ; then these took ad- 
vantage of the emperor's declining health and expected death to 
combine against their oppressors. They drove the podesta from 
the town, and chose a magistrate whom they called captain of the 
people, giving him a council of twelve senators, or anziani, two 
chosen by each quarter, and all to remain only two months in 
office. They distributed the inhabitants of the town into twenty 
companies, and those of the country districts into ninety-six, and 
requiring all to serve between the ages of fifteen and sixty-four, 
thus raised a militia of nearly 100,000 men, the choice. of their 
officers being left to the soldiers. The emperor's death in 1250 
enabled them to complete this change, and to recall the exiled 
party. The parties of the nobles were now compelled to make 
peace with one another, and to lower the fortifications of their 
houses ; and a new podesta was chosen, to act with the captain of 
the people. At first Lucca alone of the Tuscan towns had joined 
the Guelf party ; but the new government showed extraordinary 
vigour in all its operations, and, one after another, the towns were 
reduced and obliged to unite with the league ; but the municipal 
government of each remained unchanged by these successes of the 
Florentines. 

For some time the Guelfs used their victory with moderation ; 
but the violence of Italian party hatred afterwards found its 
accustomed vent, and the Ghibellines were banished in 1258. 
Two years after, with the help of Sienna and other towns, and, 
above all, with the aid of the Imperial troops, they gained a 
most complete victory at Arbia, to the almost entire destruction 
of the Florentine army (Villani, Stor. Fior. vi. c. 70, p. 202 — 
Sismondi, c. xviii.). The consequences were important : not only 
were the Ghibellines recalled and the Guelfs expelled in their 
turn, but the constitution of 1250 was abolished, the aristocracy 
restored, and a native Florentine appointed podesta, to hold his 
office for two years. A convention or diet of the Ghibelline towns 
was then held, and the entire destruction of Florence and dis- 
persion of its people was strongly urged by the magistrates who 



CH. XXVI.] NEW CONSTITUTION. 345 

represented Pisa and Sienna, as the only means of preventing 
future wars, but in reality as the means of extinguishing an ad- 
verse party, and destroying a political and commercial rival. 
Nor could anything have prevented this device from being adopted 
but the firmness of the Uberti leader, Farinata, who exclaimed 
against the infernal proposition, and refused to let his country be 
sacrificed to his party — an act of virtue rare even in modern times 
and beyond the Alps, but without example in the dark ages of Italy. 
A renewal of the same scenes followed the emperor's (Manfred) 
defeat at Grandmilla by Charles of Arragon, in 1266, through the 
singular weakness of the podesta, Guido "Novello, who, ever since 
the battle of Arbia, had governed with an exclusive court of 
thirty-six nobles. The Guelfs were once more restored, and with 
them the democratic government returned. That government 
however now suffered a material alteration : Charles was allowed 
to hold the seignory for ten years, appointing a lieutenant-vicar, 
or Commissioner (missus), for superintending the military offences 
and administration of justice, and the thirty-six councillors of 
Guido were reduced to twelve : but the political government was 
now widely different. 

The seignory, consisting of the lieutenant and his council, were 
in every matter to obtain, first of all, the sanction of the Popular 
Council, a body of one hundred citizens ; and then, on the same 
day, the sanction of the credenza, composed of eighty, but in 
which the chiefs of the seven greater crafts (or arts) had a seat. 
From these two bodies all Ghibellines and all nobles were ex- 
cluded. These two other councils it behoved also to consent to 
every measure, including the appointment of all offices ; one of 
these councils consisted of the podestas, of ninety members, both 
nobles and commoners, besides the chiefs of crafts; and the 
general council was composed of three hundred citizens, of all 
ranks. In each of these councils the consent of two-thirds was 
required to sanction any legislative measure. The great weight 
of the citizens at large in all these councils, which gave them 
a direct influence in the government, superseded, generally 
speaking, the assembly of the people. But there was another 
constitution at the same time established, which continued to 
regulate the republic, and to preserve its popular form as long as 
the commonwealth lasted. This was the administration formed 
to manage the fund that arose from confiscating the Ghibelline 



346 GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE. [cH. XXVI. 

estates; and it was a complete party government within the 
government of the state. The Guelfs chose every two months 
their consuls, called party captains, who had their secret council 
of fourteen members, their general council of sixty, three priors, 
a treasurer, and a prosecutor of Ghibellines. There never cer- 
tainly was an instance of any party feud being in any country so 
disciplined and so wielded. The vigorous administration not, only 
of its own affairs,, but those of the republic which it governed, was 
the result. Had the Jacobin club at Paris been a more regular 
body, and continued to govern in quiet times, it would have 
formed a second instance of the same sort. 

The quiet of the state and appeasing of party dissensions were 
not among the consequences of these arrangements. But the 
vigor which they gave to the administration of public affairs, and 
the consequent strength to the Guelf party at large made the 
court of Rome anxious, if possible, to allay intestine divisions that 
seemed at every moment to threaten the ruin of the republic. 
Accordingly Nicholas III. exerted himself to bring about a paci- 
fication, and with success. The people had never taken any in- 
terest in these or the other quarrels of the nobles, and were well 
pleased to see them terminated on any terms. The chief pro- 
vision which the pope made was to obtain the recall of the exiled 
party and the mixed constitution of the earlier council, giving 
eight places to the Guelfs and six to their adversaries. This 
arrangement was made in 1279, and as the feeble condition of 
the Neapolitan dynasty had transferred the lead of the Guelf 
party at Florence, from the Anjou family to the government of 
the republic, the arrangements of the party became those of the 
states, and a final settlement of the constitution was effected upon 
principles which continued, with two material additions upon 
nearly the same plan, to govern the system as long as the com- 
monwealth remained free. This important step was taken in the 
year 1282. 

The executive government was vested in a chief, or Gonfaloniere 
di giastizia, and in magistrates called Priors of the crafts (Priori 
delle arte), that of the lawyers alone having none. They were 
lodged in the same palace and maintained at the same table, at 
the public expense. They held their office for two months only, 
and were elected by the persons going out of office, the chiefs or 
gonfaloniers of quarters, with the consuls of the crafts and a cer- 



CH. XXVI.] POPULAR VIOLENCE AND INJUSTICE. 347 

taiu number of adjuncts whom they chose in the city. The vote 
was by ballot ; and no person could be chosen until he had been 
two years out of office. It would be difficult to imagine a plan of 
government more faulty than that which changed the executive 
power twelve times in a year, unless the same constitution had 
furnished another example of absurdity still more revolting in the 
restrictions laid upon the legislative authority. The nine members 
of the seignory could alone propound new laws, and those only 
in rotation, each having his day, on which he was absurdly enough 
called the jrroposto, which, if it meant anything, meant rather 
propositore, and no amendment was allowed to his proposition. 
The assent of the whole four colleges or councils was required as 
before, and two-thirds of each must concur in order to give any 
proposed change the force of law. 

The quarrels of the nobles now continued as constant as ever, 
and their interference with the administration of justice became 
more intolerable still. Whoever of their number was charged 
with any offence became the object of protection to his family, so 
that each prosecution was like the trial of a noble house. There 
could not be said to exist any police with respect to the order, and 
as against them the people had no redress for any injury. Such 
a state of things became unbearable, and the people soon found 
a leader in Giano della Bella, a noble who renounced his station 
to head them. A commission was appointed to prepare regu- 
lations which might meet the exigencies of the case ; and in 1292 
the general assembly of ihe people obtained the adoption of their 
report, long known and universally reprobated under the name, 
than which none was ever less descriptive of the thing signified, 
Ordinances of justice. It seems certain that in no country has 
party violence ever gone the length of openly avowing such designs 
of oppression as are in this famous instrument plainly disclosed. 
All iniquitous things have been perpetrated elsewhere, but always 
under the disguise of some mask, or, if undisguised, yet done with- 
out being proclaimed, and done as the exception, not announced 
as the rule. It was reserved for Florence to promulgate a code 
of avowed and rank injustice as the rule of conduct in adminis- 
tering a free and popular government. It began by excluding 
from all office the whole members of the thirty-seven greatest 
families in the country and depriving them by name of the power 
to enter into any craft whereby they might become eligible to 



348 GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE. [CH. XXVI. 

office. It gave to the seignory the power of inserting from time 
to time new names in the book of nobles, and thereby rendering 
those who bore them equally ineligible with the real nobles ; thus 
inflicting nobility and its disqualifications as a punishment. But 
the most monstrous of all the provisions contained in this code of 
democratic justice was the rule of evidence which it applied to 
the nobles. Mere rumour, if sworn to exist by two credible wit- 
nesses, was sufficient, not to put a person on his trial, as has some- 
times been said to be the English law of impeachment, though 
certainly never acted on, but also to warrant his conviction. The 
adoption of this ordinance was accompanied with the formation of 
a numerous military police under an official called Gonfaloniere 
di Giustizia ; and one of the first acts after the adoption of the 
plan was to pull down all the houses of the Galetti family, upon 
the avowed ground that one of them had killed a Florentine citizen 
somewhere in France. 

Meanwhile the influence of the great body of the people was 
constantly decreasing ; the whole power in the state became vested 
in the wealthier citizens, those called Popolani grossi, though the 
government was practically so democratic that the priori were 
required to be persons actually exercising themselves the trade of 
the craft to which they nominally belonged. Yet those wealthier 
burghers were equally disliked by all above and all below them ; 
the nobles viewed them with contempt, and the common people 
with aversion, to whom they were more insolent than the real 
nobles. Nor was it easy to distinguish them from that noble class 
by their circumstances any more than by their habits. They had 
their fortified houses or palaces* in the town, their possessions in 
the country, with vassals and other retainers ; their families were 
numerous, and their younger branches, bred up in ease and indul- 
gence, had all the insolent pride of the patrician order. 

Among these nobles there now broke out anew party dissension. 
At Pistoia there was a private and personal quarrel between two 
branches of the Cancellieri family, called the Bianchi and Neri f, 

* The term palace, however, at Florence, was applied to so low a kind of mansion, 
that, in the estimate of losses made on one of the changes of government, all houses 
were called palaces which were valued at 300 florins, about 420/. or 500/. of present 
value. 

f So called from Biancha or Bianchi, the name of a female ancestor of one branch ; 
and by a play on the word, neri (bTack) was given as the name of the other, to distin- 
guish it. 



CH. XXVI.] PARTIES— CHANGES IN THE CONSTITUTION. 349 

and all the other families making common cause with these after 
the fashion of the age, the community was involved in perpetual 
discord and violence, and the government to quell it gave up to 
Florence the seignory for ten years. The government ordered 
the leaders of both factions to leave Pistoia and come to Flo- 
rence. There it happened that a quarrel existed between an 
ancient family the Donata, and one of the Popolani grossi ; the 
Cerchi and some of the Neri having been received into the houses 
of the former, the latter received the Bianchi, from a spirit of 
opposition. This was quite enough to inoculate all Florence 
with the Pistoian parties, and the whole families of distinction 
became ranged against each other as Bianchi or Neri ; but with 
so little regard to anything like principle, or opinion, or consist- 
ency, that the Bianchi, who were for the new as against the old 
nobility — the Grossi popolani as against the nobles — were all 
Ghibellines, whose principles were aristocratic, hostile to all po- 
pular encroachments, and favourable to even absolute power, 
certainly to the ancient established order of things ; while the Neri, 
who held by the rights of the ancient nobility, and were the pa- 
trician party, were all Guelfs, whose principle it was to take part 
with the people as against the aristocracy, and to favour popular 
government. 

The only other change that took place in the constitution of 
1282, after the ordinance excluding the nobles, related to the 
manne/ of choosing the seignory, and it was of great importance. 
Ever since that constitution was established, the electoral body 
had continued the same as we have described it, namely, the late 
priors, the police chiefs or gonfalonieri of the quarters, the councils 
of crafts and adjuncts ; and the elections were six times a-year. 
In 1323, when there was a great pressure upon the country from 
foreign war, the seignory, having gained much credit with all the 
people by the discovery of several plots among the nobles, took 
upon themselves, in concert with the adjuncts, to name, instead of 
six succeeding priors, one hundred and twenty-six, who should 
every two months rise by lot to the six vacant places — thus 
anticipating the elections for three years and a half. The same 
principle was soon after applied to the offices of gonfalonieri di 
giustizia, to that of the twelve prudhommes or councillors of the 
priors, and to the college of sixteen gonfalonieri. Thus seven 
hundred and thirty-five persons were selected at once and by one 



350 GOVERNMENT OP FLORENCE. [CH. XXVI. 

set of electors ; and out of these, every two months thirty-five were 
drawn by lot ; so that for three years and a half no discretion 
whatever could be exercised by any of those having the right of 
selection. These priori, belonging to the popolani grossi, of 
course selected their creatures for these places. These popolani 
grossi had now so far monopolized the chief power, that Florence 
might be said to be entirely governed by a burgher oligarchy; 
and about the year 1340 it was understood that twelve of those 
powerful citizens engrossed the whole authority of the state and 
named to all its offices. They took upon themselves the creation 
of a new magistrate, a kind of chief judge ; and they appointed a 
captain, with high powers, to command a guard for the govern- 
ment. 

Two years after, this example was followed by the people, who 
became enraged at the failure of an attack upon Lucca, and chose 
the Duke of Athens captain of justice and commander in chief. 
The oligarchy are accused of having secretly urged on the duke 
to acts of cruelty and oppression against their adversaries, the 
nobles and the people, in order to divert their attention from their 
own misconduct. However, it is certain that he turned upon 
themselves and made severe examples of several. Soon after it 
was found that those burgher chiefs had been appropriating public 
money without account, and the nobles and the rich merchants, 
whom the oligarchy excluded from office, joined the mob in 
giving absolute power for life to the duke. It is true he held it 
but for a year, being driven away in consequence of his sordid 
exactions, his oppressive and offensive conduct, and the tyranny 
and perfidy which he exercised towards all classes in succession 
after having filled every place with the very scum of the people. 
But the nation, having once voluntarily submitted to the dominion 
of a sovereign, was prepared for any tyranny that could be dis- 
guised under plausible pretexts, designated by inoffensive names, 
assumed by slow degrees, and exercised without needless se- 
verity — a memorable though a very ordinary example of the 
manner in which despotism creeps upon a communitv where the 
genuine spirit of liberty has been extinguished by the debasement 
of national character, or perverted by the arts of party. 

The losses sustained by the republic during the government of 
the duke have perhaps been overrated, yet they were very consi- 
derable : for, beside losing all the conquests in Lucca, Pistoia, 



CH. XXVI.] FOLLY OF THE NOBLES. 351 

Volterra, Arezzo, that base and vulgar tyrant had nearly trebled 
the land-tax, robbed the public creditor of the funds assigned for 
his security, grievously 7 increased the other taxes, and in the short 
space of ten months appropriated a sum equal to half a million of 
our present money, great part of which he had vested in foreign 
funds. 

If the nobles had conducted themselves with ordinary prudence, 
they would certainly have obtained a repeal of the infamous 
Ordinance, as soon as they had, with the assistance of the people, 
overthrown the tyrant whom the mob had, but with their assent, 
set up. The ordinance was in fact suspended in their favour, and 
they were admitted to one-third of the public employments ; when 
their revenge for so long an exclusion burst forth in acts of vio- 
lence against the other orders, and led to an immediate re-enact- 
ment of the ordinance, in all its unmitigated injustice. Civil war 
ensued; the nobles were defeated, many of their palaces pillaged 
and burnt, and all that remained of the changes which had been 
effected in the ordinance was the erasing from the noble list be- 
tween five hundred and six hundred families — either those whose 
poverty made them rather tools in the hands of others than for- 
midable in themselves, or those whose conduct towards the com- 
mons appeared to have merited this favour. Some of the greatest 
families received this mark of distinction, and becoming com- 
moners were thenceforth rendered again capable of holding office. 
The division of the city into four equal quarters, instead of six very 
unequal, was a material improvement introduced at the same 
time, and the seignory was composed of the gonfalonier with 
eight priors, two from each quarter. The council of the seignory 
was to consist of twelve citizens and sixteen chiefs of companies. 
But the most remarkable part of the change was the provision 
that, of the nine constituting the seignory, three should be taken 
from each class of burghers — for, in fact, the commoners were now 
divided not into two ranks merely, the grossi and the inferior ones, 
but into three ; those below the grossi having become separated 
into the middle classes and the artisans. Such is the inevitable 
tendency of the Natural Aristocracy to create divisions, and so cer- 
tainly do those who get a little above others endeavour to act like 
their superiors and to look down upon those beneath them. The 
middle burghers, in all probability, were now as much disliked by 
the artisans as they disliked the grossi — and they probably looked 



352 GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE. [CH. XXVI. 

down upon the artisans as much as they were looked down upon 
by the grossi. 

These dissensions, and the old difference of Guelfs and Ghibel- 
lines combined to create, in the middle of the fourteenth century, 
the parties of Albizzi and Ricci, the occasion as usual being a 
family quarrel, through which the elements of the discord pre- 
viously existing only found a vent. The Albizzi, though of the 
Guelf or liberal and democratic party, were the supporters of the 
popular nobility, or new aristocracy ; the Ricci, though Ghibel- 
lines, headed the democratic party, or those opposed to the popo- 
lani grossi and attached to the middle and lower classes. Yet 
both parties had for their leaders families of the same new nobility, 
whose members were playing the same game with their inferiors 
against one another as had so often been played by the conflicting 
parties of the real and old nobility both in this and other states. 
The most outrageous proceedings were the result of these fac- 
tious struggles, and upon one occasion the very rabble took the 
lead against both parties, banding themselves under the name of 
Ciompi, and terrifying the government into an unconditional sur- 
render of the whole constitution and the establishment of mob 
government by law. The republic was tossed about from one set 
of rebels to another in a state of constant anarchy for three years, 
from 1378 to 1381. But the influence of the Albizzi party was 
finally established, and it governed the state for above half a cen- 
tury with great success, extraordinary ability, and as much virtue 
as could well be expected in that age and among that people. 

The triumph of aristocratic government is perhaps more justly 
to be marked in the history of Florence during that celebrated 
period than even in the more extended annals of the Venetian 
polity. The burgher patricians could not be accused of infringing 
the rights of the other orders, or of assuming either power or 
wealth at the expense of their interests. At home their govern- 
ment was moderate, and it was, generally speaking, vigorous. In 
foreign affairs it was distinguished by an enlarged and disinterested 
policy, which, while it raised the name and influence of the re- 
public, successively checked the conquests of the Visconti and of 
Naples, and consulted the interests of all Italy by wisely taking 
the course that prevented encroachments in one quarter, and 
afforded everywhere protection to national independence. The 
origin of these achievements which Tuscany made in letters and 



CH. XXVI.] GRANDEUR OF FLORENCE. 353 

the arts may be also mainly traced to the same period, although, 
as we have so often had occasion to observe in other countries, the 
merit was afterwards ascribed to those who succeeded, namely, the 
Medici, and who reaped the harvest prepared by the preceding age. 
But it is to be well noted in commemorating the glories of the Flo- 
rentine aristocracy, that these dreadful scenes of strife and pillage 
and bloodshed, in which the reign of the Albizzi began, had their 
origin in the contentions of the leading families of the new nobility, 
and that even the mob revolt of the ciompi was instigated by the 
proceedings of the Ricci, particularly Salvestro dei Medici. It 
may be well to remark further the pitch of wealth and grandeur 
which Florence had reached under its popular government, and at 
which not all the turbulence of its democracy, nor the factions 
wherewith its aristocracy had distracted the community, had 
prevented its industrious people and skilful traders from arriv- 
ing, under the happy influence of free institutions. 

There were in the whole state little above 600,000 inhabitants, 
of whom 150,000 belonged to the city; but more than 100,000 
of these were enrolled as militia. In time of war, the republic, 
conscious of the want of military valour, which distinguished its 
subjects as much as did their political courage, employed merce- 
nary troops, and incurred heavy debts ; but in peace, when these 
were discharged, the revenue was six times greater than the ex- 
penditure, and the debts were rapidly extinguished. None of the 
native magistrates or ministers received any other reward than the 
gratification of their ambition, and the satisfaction of discharging 
a public duty. In fact all were actively engaged in the lucrative 
pursuits of commerce and manufactures. The yearly produce of 
the woollen trade, the great staple of the country, was equal to 
two millions of our present money ; the ships of the republic were 
seen in every sea, the merchants in every trading city ; the capital- 
ists had the command of almost all the changes in Europe, and 
could influence most of its courts ; there were no less than eighty 
bankers and dealers in money belonging to the city ; and the 
yearly coinage greatly exceeded half a million of our money. 
These things however were more nearly akin to the pursuits of 
traders than other branches of industry, and the more liberal pur- 
suits, in which even during the most democratic period of their 
history the Florentines excelled. Nowhere was agriculture in all 
its departments more liberally protected, more strenuously or more 

PART II. 2 A 



354 GOVERNMENT OF FLORENCE. [cH. XXVI. 

successfully pursued. The feudal nobles had no reason to pride 
themselves upon any superiority in this respect. On the contrary, 
the country smiled chiefly under the rule of the burgher govern- 
ment ; and it was universally allowed that the eye could at once 
distinguish between the lands held as fiefs, and those of rich 
merchants, by the far higher state of culture in which the latter 
uniformly were found. The leading families, truly termed mer- 
chant-princes, cultivated literature, science, all the fine arts, and 
were the patrons of genius in every department. The democratic 
government had, before the temporary surrender of the state to 
the Duke of Athens, and the more permanent establishment, first 
of the aristocracy, and then of the tyrannical sovereignty, extended 
the power of the republic, by conquest and by negociation, over 
most of the Tuscan states ; had frustrated all the attempts of 
Milan to overpower it ; had resisted the imperial aggressions, par- 
ticularly in Henry VI I. 's time, when it formed the league which 
secured the independence of all Italy ; had checked the Scalas in 
their usurpations, and saved the principality of Padua from their 
domination. It is certain that the democratic power in no other 
Italian commonwealth was attended with so wise and vigorous an 
administration, and in none produced so few of the evils in foreign 
affairs inseparable from that scheme of polity. 

The government of Florence, after the period which we have 
been considering, became monarchical, and belongs to the former 
part of this work. It has accordingly been already examined, 
as have also been the steps by which the commonwealth was 
destroyed. 



ch. xxvii. ] 355 



CHAPTER XXVII. 



LESSER ITALIAN GOVERNMENTS PISA BOLOGNA STENNA- 

LUCCA — SAN MARINO. 



Want of Information respecting Pisa. 

Bologna — Early Charter and Government — Early regularity of the Constitution — 
Consuls; Councils; Podesta; Public Orators — Party Feuds. 

Sienna — Aristocracy never entirely extinguished — Consuls; Podesta; Council — Oli- 
garchy established; steps of the transition — Intrigues of the Oligarchs with Foreign 
Powers — Oligarchs overthrown — Burgher Aristocracy and Oligarchy — Government 
falls into the hands of the lowest Class — Surrender to Visconti — Factious Turbulence 
and Revolutions — Petrucci's Power^Five Orders recognised — Duke of Calabria — 
Mob Oligarchy — Revolution and New Government — Dictatorship, and Destruction 
of this Constitution — Government of Spain and France alternately — Union with Tus- 
cany — Real duration of Siennese Oligarchy. 

Lucca — Revolutions deserving of attention — Early Government and Parties — Cas- 
truccio Castracani's Services and Usurpation — Good Conduct of the Lucchese — 
Anziani; Gonfaloniere ; College; Great Council — Practical Oligarchy — Paul 
Giunigi — His great Merit — Cruel Fate — Republic restored — Perfidy and Conquest 
of the Medici — Martinian Law — Oligarchy finally established — Its permanence. 

San Marino — Antiquity of its Government — Extent and Population — Constitution ; 
Anziani; Senate; Gonfaloniere; Capitani — Judicial Authority. 

It would be useless, and indeed in most instances only give rise 
to repetitions of the same remarks, upon almost the same facts, 
were we to examine in detail the constitutions and the history of 
the other Italian commonwealths. The one which, after those we 
have been considering, may be most calculated to interest the 
political observer, is Pisa, from the very early period at which 
her commercial importance was established, and from the lead 
which she took in the cultivation of the aits, occupying a position 
extraordinarily disproportioned to her natural resources. But 
unfortunately there is no one of the Italian states respecting 
which we have so little authentic information. The period of her 
prosperity was from the eleventh to the thirteenth century, before 
the end of which she had fallen into complete decline. But no 
native historian has treated of her affairs at any time, and what 
we know of them is gathered from very scanty notices, occasionally 
given by writers, all of whom belonged to the countries of her 

2 a 2 



356 GOVERNMENT OF BOLOGNA. [CH. XXVII. 

enemies and rivals. It is certain, however, that her constitution 
was nearly the same with the early ones of Florence and other 
towns, and that the same dissensions prevailed among her nobles 
and burghers. 



On the other hand, there is no one of the early governments of 
which we have more detailed information than we possess of the 
Bolognese. At the beginning of the twelfth century Bologna 
received from the Emperor Henry V. a municipal charter, giving 
it the right of coinage, and of choosing its consuls and other 
magistrates. They were to be taken from the nobles ; and the 
judges were to administer justice in the emperor's name. There 
was the usual division of the town into quarters or wards, the 
usual command of the militia in each by its gonfaloniere, or 
standard-bearer, the usual opposition of the country to the civic 
nobles, and the enrolment of the former ultimately among the 
citizens. At the end of the war between the Emperor Frederick 
and the Lombard league, we find the government at Bologna a lead- 
ing member of that league, described as reduced to a more fixed and 
better defined state than that of almost any other commonwealth 
— a condition which it had attained some time before, but in all 
probability by slow degrees, so that the exact period cannot truly 
be assigned with the accuracy which some writers have affected. 
The General Council was composed of all citizens eighteen years 
old, excluding only the lowest citizens and labourers ; the Special 
or Lesser Council consisted of six hundred citizens, and the exe- 
cutive, or Credenza, was not numerous, but all lawyers had a right 
to seats in it. The members of the special council and credenza 
were named yearly, by ten persons in each of the four tribes into 
which the inhabitants were divided ; these ten were drawn by lot, 
and selected the councillors of their tribe. Nothing is known of 
the manner in which the consuls were chosen; the podesta was a 
foreigner, annually appointed by forty members of the General 
and Special councils ; these were drawn by lot, and enclosed in a 
kind of conclave, but obliged to make their choice by a majority 
of twenty-seven, within twenty-four hours, or they lost their right 
of election. The councils generally named the town from which 
he was to be taken, and the law required that he should have no 
relationship with any of the electors, thus leaving it to chance 



CH. XXVII.] FACTIONS LOSS OF LIBERTY. 357 

whether the fittest persons should not be excluded. The law 
likewise required that he should be a noble, thirty-six years of 
age, and having no landed property in the state. The consuls 
and podesta, or some one by their leave, could alone make any 
proposition to the councils ; and nothing was binding on the com- 
munity without the consent of all the councils. In general the 
measures propounded by the consuls, or podesta, were only dis- 
cussed by four public orators, the rest of the meeting having little 
more to do than ballot for its adoption or rejection. 

The same war of party, as in other states, distracted and ex- 
hausted Bologna. The Guelfs were led by the Gierenci family, 
the Ghibellines by the Lambertazzi; and after a succession of 
ordinary hostilities, with little bloodshed, the amour of a Lamber- 
tazzi with a Gierenci, followed as was usual with an assassination, 
produced an open rupture, in which all the nobles and many of 
the commons took part. The Gierenci, having captured all the 
fortified houses of their adversaries, obtained a sentence of banish- 
ment, of which 12,000 according to one account, 15,000 accord- 
ing to another, were expelled, their property confiscated, and their 
houses razed to the ground. Both parties had called in foreign 
assistance, and the Lambertazzi, after their expulsion, fought 
against their country, in union with the refugee Ghibellines from 
all other parts of Italy. The victorious party of the Gierenci had 
to protect themselves by the aid, first of the pope, then of the 
Viscontis, which they purchased with the surrender of the com- 
monwealth's independence; and we have seen (Part i.^Chap. xviu.) 
by what steps the alternate anarchy and dangers of the state led 
at Bologna to the loss of its independence, as well as its liberties. 



Sienna presents few peculiarities to distinguish its early political 
history from that of the other commonwealths. It was a bishop's 
see in the sixth century. In the contests between the pope and 
the emperor it generally took the Ghibelline, or imperial side. 
The government was republican, and resembled that of Florence, 
and after the aristocratic period the people obtained the chief 
power, though the nobles were never excluded so entirely from 
the administration of its affairs as at Florence, owing in a great 
measure to the ascendant of the Ghibelline party, and the support 
which it received from the imperialists. It is a decisive proof of 
the aristocratic influence never having been entirely subdued, that 



358 GOVERNMENT OF SIENNA. [CH. XXVII. 

when the Florentines conquered Sienna in 1254, they and their 
Guelf allies in the republic left the government entirely un- 
changed ; and when, four years after, the Ghibellines were banished 
from Florence, they were received and sheltered in Sienna, where 
they prepared the great victory which was afterwards gained, as 
we have seen, at Arbia. The government was vested in consuls, 
a podesta, and a council, the seignory consisting of fifteen inhabit- 
ants in all. Towards the latter part of the thirteenth century the 
Guelf party had the ascendant, and the republic joined the great 
Tuscan league against Genoa, in which Pisa alone refused to take 
a part. When the great revolution of 1282 changed the govern- 
ment of Florence, the people of Sienna immediately after followed 
the example of their powerful neighbours. In place of the coun- 
cil of fifteen, nine officers were appointed, under the name of 
governors and defenders of the people : they were all to be taken 
from the burghers, and the nobles to be entirely excluded ; their 
term of office was, as at Florence, two months; and, like the 
Florentine priori, they were lodged together and maintained at 
the public expense ; finally, they were chosen for each of the 
three wards or quarters of the city. The burghers were to choose 
the nine defenders ; and they formed, in the course of a few years 
after this constitution was established, a list or register of the 
families to whom they were resolved to confine the elective fran- 
chise, as well as the eligibility. 

The manner in which this transition to oligarchy was effected 
deserves our attention, because we have in hardly any other 
instance the course recorded which the faction pursued in 
order to accomplish its monopoly of power. The General 
Council of the people were the electors, and it consisted of 
four hundred. At first, the election was six times a year, but 
immediately after they chose the whole six sets at once, and, 
as at Florence, drew the Nine every two months by lot. But 
those first chosen having the right to attend the council, and to 
cause a new election as soon as the fifty-four first chosen were ex- 
hausted, these combined together and voted against any new 
name being selected, or at least any name of which they disap- 
proved, for they allowed a few additions occasionally to be made. 
The votes of some who supported them, together with their own, 
were sure to defeat those who desired to promote other persons, 
but who did not act with the same concert in favour of the same 
names. We have in our own times, both in the India House and 



CH. XXVII.] OLIGARCHY— THE NINE. 359 

in the ballots for secret committees in parliament, examples of 
the effect of a house-list, which this was. The whole number of 
the persons who were inscribed in this list was under ninety, the 
number of families probably less than thirty. There was thus con- 
stituted a class, or rank, which got the name of the "Mountain" 
or " Order of the Nine." * This burgher aristocracy was really 
an oligarchy, for it monopolized the powers of government to the 
absolute exclusion of a portion of its own body. The privileged 
governing class soon became alike odious to the nobles and the 
people, and especially to the class from which themselves were 
taken. Accordingly, aware of their unpopularity, and of the dan- 
ger to which it exposed them, they endeavoured to intrigue with 
foreign states to obtain support, and at any rate were afraid of 
taking any decided couise which could shake their security. 
This was shown in all their relations both with Milan and Flo- 
rence ; but in 1355 they placed the republic under the emperor's 
authority, in order to obtain his protection for their own usurped 
power. Charles IV. however found, upon arriving at Sienna, 
that he had espoused a party that was opposed by the nobles, the 
populace, and the greater number of the wealthy citizens, and 
heard nothing but cries of " Death to the Nine," wherever he 
went, coupled with favourable expressions towards himself. He 
lost no time in abandoning those he had come to support, and 
forfeiting his pledges in their behalf; he suffered the mob to pil- 
lage their houses, insult their persons, and even murder them as 
they fled; he made decrees against all the "Order of the Nine;" 
appointed thirty commissioners, of whom twelve were nobles, to 
reform the government under the presidency of his natural brother; 
and left lieutenants to maintain, on his departure, the sovereign 
authority he had obtained by his treaty with the Nine, and which 
he did not think fit to lay down upon their overthrow. On his 
return, a few weeks after, having meanwhile been crowned at 
Rome, he made no other stipulation with the people, except that 
his brother should have the seignory, in order that there should 
be some one to arbitrate between the conflicting parties. The 
government had been settled by the commission in his absence, 
and had pronounced sentence of perpetual exclusion against the 
Order of the Nine, vesting the administration in Twelve burghers, 

* Andrea, Dei-Cronica Sanese, 1283, torn. xv. ; p. 38 — Malavolti, Storia, Parte II. 
lib. iii., fol. 50— Mat. Vil., iv., 61, p. 278. 



360 GOVERNMENT OF SIENNA. [CH. XXVII. 

chosen in the same manner and at the same time as the Nine had 
been, but adding a college of six nobles as councillors of the 
seignory or the twelve, and adding one hundred and fifty, also 
nobles, to the general council of four hundred. No sooner had 
the emperor left Sienna than the people rose upon his brother 
and drove him from the state, thus investing the Twelve with 
supreme authority. For they pursued exactly the same course 
which the Nine had formerly taken, with this additional circum- 
stance as regards their brother burghers, that they began their 
encroachments with a positive law excluding from power thirty of 
the first families among the commoners. They succeeded, how- 
ever, to the odium as well as to the authority of the Nine, and 
endeavoured to protect themselves by fomenting divisions among 
the nobles, to whom they were as hateful as to the people. A 
perfidious attempt of this kind to take advantage of the hereditary 
feud between the Tolomei and SaUmberri, the leading families of 
the Guelfs and Ghibellines respectively, was defeated by the still 
greater craft of the nobles themselves ; and at the moment when the 
oligarchs expected to see a conflict between the forces of the feudal 
vassals and the imperialist troops of which they had the command, 
both armies united against themselves, together with the retainers 
of the Nine and many of the people ; and they were overthrown, 
after a reign of thirteen years. 

The nobles now endeavoured to restore the old government 
under the consuls, only rendering it more entirely aristocratic, by 
taking ten from their own order generally, and three from the 
Order of the Nine. The people rebelled against this proposition, 
and both parties having appealed to Charles, he sent a force, 
which the nobles would have defeated, had not the Twelve and the 
people united to receive the imperial troops, driving the barons to 
their castles in the country. A government of compromise was 
now formed : it consisted of twelve, taking three from the " Order 
of Nine," four from the " Order of Twelve," and five from the rest 
of the burghers, who were formed into a third order called " the 
Reformers."* The two councils were to be formed of the orders 
in the same proportions ; and the nobles were absolutely excluded. 
An imperial lieutenant (or vicar) was placed at the head of the 
republic. The Twelve, however, raised a revolt against an 

* Monte dei 9 — Monte dei 12 — and Monte del Riformatori. — Malavolti, Sioria 
Sanesc, Part II., lib. vii. 



CH. XX VII.] FACTIONS— SURRENDER TO VISCONTI. 361 

arrangement far too equitable to suit their purpose ; and failing 
in their design, immediately joined the emperor in his base and 
sordid scheme of selling Sienna with other Tuscan cities to the 
see of Rome. The general council having thwarted all their pro- 
ceedings, they took arms against the rest of the authorities, and 
were, with the emperor, signally defeated. The nobles now made 
a great effort to regain their authority, and all parties agreed in 
calling in the mediation of Florence. The result was that the 
nobles were recalled, and rendered capable of holding all offices 
except those constituting the seignory. The proportion was fixed 
in which they and the people should hold the inferior magistracies. 
This arrangement did not last long, and the whole power was soon 
usurped by the Order of Reformers, composed of the lower classes 
of artisans. Their oppression became equally unbearable to the 
nobles and the rest of the community. The orders of the Nine 
and the Twelve now joined the nobles against them, and a san- 
guinary struggle ensued, which ended in driving 4000 of the un- 
popular order and its partisans out of the town, and vesting the 
government in the orders of the Nine and the Twelve, and a new 
order formed of a portion of the lowest class, which had been ex- 
cluded from the order of reformers, and called the Order of the 
People (monte del pojjolo). This happened in 1385; and in the 
course of the next two or three years the old enmity against 
Florence broke out more fiercely than ever, and the Siennese 
actually had the baseness to offer their sovereignty to John 
Galeazzo Visconti, in the hope that the result would be his esta- # 
blishing an absolute power over their rivals the Florentines. He 
deemed it prudent to refuse it for the present ; but after continued 
wars with Florence, and still more after the weakness induced by 
the folly and violence of the government, vested in the lowest 
classes, had exhausted the country, and when the spirit of the 
people was broken by the conflict of the factions and the tyranny 
of the successive oligarchies, Visconti obtained his favourite object, 
and Sienna, as well as Pisa, was given up to him, and held in 
sovereignty from 1399 until his death in 1402. 

During the whole of the fifteenth and the first half of the six- 
teenth century, the history of Sienna presents a constant series of 
factions and changes ; the power being in the hands sometimes of 
one order of the burgesses, sometimes of the other ; and once, for 
above twenty years, in the hands of a person of great capacity, 



362 GOVERNMENT OF SIENNA. [cH. XXVII. 

called Petrucci, of an ancient family, who obtained the chief in- 
fluence in 1 439 over the executive council with declaratory powers 
(valid) appointed to settle the state, and retained it through the 
influence of the French monarch Louis XII., till his death in 
1512. There were, in fact, five orders now recognised at Sienna : 
the old, or country, or Feudal Nobles ; the Nine, or one body of 
popular nobles ; the Twelve, who were another body of the same 
class ; the Reformers ; and the People. From the Nine, the 
Twelve, and the Reformers, were excluded a body of four hundred 
wealthy and respectable traders, quite fitted in all respects for 
holding the higher stations; the jealousy and monopolizing spirit of 
the government kept them out. In 1403 a coalition was effected 
of the Nine, the Reformers, and the People; and during the fif- 
teenth century this combination excluded all the rest. These three 
orders by turns chose the gonfaloniere, and each of them gave their 
powers to the seignory. In 1408 and 1409 the urgent remon- 
strances of Pius II. made the seignory add to the number of pri- 
vileged families the Picolomini, and open to the nobles a part of 
the offices, though positively refusing to include the order of the 
Twelve in the permission. In 1464, however, the pope died, and 
the admission of the nobles was immediately repealed. During 
the long period of what was called the " Trinity" government 
(that is, the coalition of the Nine, the Reformers, and the People), 
the affairs of the country had been upon the whole tolerably well 
administered ; but the usual scope had been given to foreign in- 
trigue, and the Duke of Calabria coming in force to Sienna in 
1480, was only prevented from annexing it to Naples by the 
sudden landing of the Turkish army at Otranto. On his leaving 
the city, the most dreadful contests, burnings, and massacres took 
place among the Orders, and at length, in 1492, a resolution was 
taken to have but one order, into which all the rest should be 
fused. This, however, would not satisfy the democratic party, 
who insisted on a line being drawn for the purpose of excluding 
those of the Orders allowed to hold office who had any patrician 
connexion. A complete mob oligarchy was, after new massacres, 
re-established, and with this the Medici family treated and in- 
trigued. In 1487 a revolution was effected without bloodshed, 
and the Great Council was now to consist of seven hundred and 
twenty, one hundred and eighty to be chosen by the Reformers, 
as many by the People, as many by the Nine, and as many by 



CH. XXVII.] ' SIENNESE OLIGARCHY. S63 

the Nobles and the Twelve jointly. In a very short time, how- 
ever, a dictatorship (or valid) of twenty-four was appointed, and 
this new constitution was at once swept away, — with the usual 
accompaniments of such changes, the banishment and execution 
of many parties. After being for nearly thirty years under the 
protection, that is under the government of Charles V., and Philip 
II., and the Kings of France, and having sometimes a Spanish, 
sometimes a French, garrison introduced to quell their factions, 
the Siennese finally abandoned even the forms of their republican 
government in 1557, and were united to Tuscany. 

The government of Sienna certainly presents the most remark- 
able instance of an oligarchy continuing for a great length of 
time. Yet it did not in reality last so much longer, as at first sight 
it may appear to have done, than the principles might have led 
us to expect. The first dominion of the Nine was undoubtedly 
oligarchical, and it continued for the extraordinary period of 
above seventy years, from 1283 to 1355. The government, too, 
was almost constantly oligarchical during the rest of the four- 
teenth century, and a part of the fifteenth. But the same 
oligarchy did not continue in power. Thus the Twelve who 
succeeded the Nine, in 1355, only remained thirteen years in 
power. The power of the Reformers, at their first usurpation, 
did not last so long : the power of the lowest class, the Order 
of the People, beside being shared with the other Orders of the 
Twelve and the Nine, was interrupted by the surrender to Vis- 
conti before it had lasted above a few years ; and the succeeding 
century presents us with a succession of changes. The natural 
tendency of an oligarchy, therefore, to be overthrown, and the 
great difficulty to support itself which that government must ever 
have, which, from its nature, must unite against its existence all 
its own natural supporters, is by no means contradicted by any 
portion of Siennese history, except only the earlier period when 
the Nine first ruled. In all other respects that, as well as the 
more recent period, is calculated fully to confirm whatever has 
been either here or elsewhere laid dow r n respecting the tendency 
of oligarchical government, or rather the oligarchical abuse of re- 
publican government, to injure all the best interests, foreign and 
domestic, of the community. 



364 GOVERNMENT OF LUCCA. [cil. XXVII. 

The small state of Lucca merits a particular examination, not 
only on account of its early progress in civilization and wealth, 
and of the extraordinary degree in which it swarmed at all times 
with inhabitants, but because of the singular political measures 
which at different periods changed its government. It belonged, 
with Florence, Sienna, and all the other towns, except Pisa, to 
the remarkable association of which we have already spoken, the 
Tuscan League, in the twelfth century. It had originally an 
aristocratic, then a republican government, like the other states, 
and was, like them, a prey both to the factions of its own families, 
and to the more general divisions in which all Italy took a part. 
Like Florence it adopted the Pistoian division of the Bianchi and 
Neri, and these parties experienced the same numerous and 
sudden reverses in Lucca as elsewhere. When the Bianchi, or 
Ghibellines, were banished in 1301, and an aristocratic govern- 
ment was formed, the principal influence in the state fell into the 
hands of the Obizei family ; but they became odious to the people 
as well as the rest of the nobles, and a combination of the two 
classes overthrew them, and recalled the Guelfs in 1314. Cas- 
truccio Castracani, of whom we have already spoken (Part II., 
Chapter xvm.), intrigued with the Pisan chiefs to further his 
own designs upon the sovereignty, but afterwards defended Lucca 
against them, and was made captain of the people and the forces. 
He was chosen three successive years to the office, and, having 
gained the favour of the common people, and gratified them by 
assisting to banish the Guelfs, he openly claimed the absolute 
sovereignty, which the senate conferred upon him by a majority 
of two hundred and nine, out of two hundred and ten who voted 
on his proposition. The magistrates were chosen as before, the 
outward forms of the constitution being maintained by him, as it 
always was by usurpers in Italian commonwealths, at least for 
some time after they obtained the chief power, but generally, also 
in name, even after they had engrossed all the real authority to 
themselves. In 1327 the emperor Lewis of Bavaria erected 
Lucca, Volterra, and Pistoia into a duchy for him ; but next year, 
with his accustomed rapacity and faithlessness, he seized Lucca, 
and sold it to another branch of the Castracani family ; and, in 
the course of forty years, it was made the subject of barter and 
sale seven several times by usurpers, princes, and mercenary cap- 
tains, from the year 1342 it was surrendered to Pisa, but 






CH. XXVII.] LUCCHESE OLIGARCHY. 365 

finally, in 1369, Charles IV., for a large sum (equal to nearly 
half a million of our present money), established its independence, 
vesting the government in ten anziani, as before. It has ever 
been esteemed a singular merit in the Lucca people that, during 
the fifty-five years of their subjugation, they retained the constant 
resolution, if possible, to regain their independence, and that no 
other people either kept so free from foreign intrigue, or so uni- 
versally maintained their courage and hopes under adverse for- 
tune. 

The government was now in some degree changed, but its fun- 
damental principles remained the same as before the subjugation. 
In 1323 the Florentine plan had been adopted of choosing magis- 
trates at once for several elections, and then drawing their names 
by lot, and this practice continued ever after. The people were 
now distributed into three tribes, instead of the city being divided 
into wards as before. The executive government, or signiory, 
consisted of a gonfaloniere and nine anziani, three for each tribe ; 
these all remained in office for two months, and were obliged 
then either to retire altogether, or change their offices. There 
was a college, or lesser council, of thirty-six, chosen for six 
months ; and a great, or general council, originally of two hun- 
dred, afterwards of ninety, chosen yearly. The members of these 
different bodies, in effect, chose their successors, and consequently 
always remained in office, with the single change of going out for 
a while, to comply with the law. The nobles were absolutely 
excluded from all offices and all councils. This kind of rotation, 
by which the same persons continued to remain always in place, 
was known among the Florentines by the nickname of the " little 
circle government" (signoria del cerchiolino). Among the families 
to whom this practical oligarchy gave the principal control, the 
most, powerful was that of the Giunigi ; they gradually obtained 
an almost unbounded influence ; and thirty years after the Luc- 
chese independence had been restored, the plague having carried 
off most of their leading men, Paul Giunigi took advantage of 
his family's power in the republic, and the accidental absence of 
all competition, to usurp the sovereignty, and abolish the places 
of anziani altogether, in nearly the same way in which Benti- 
voglio soon after, in similar circumstances, usurped absolute power 
at Bologna. None of the Italian tyrants, subverters of the com- 



366 GOVERNMENT OF LUCCA. [cH. XX VI I. 

monwealth, is spoken of with such contempt as this individual, 
as if the want of showy talents, and the administering of a people's 
affairs, without brilliant exploits, were a disgrace to a prince 
and a discredit to his subjects. For thirty years he maintained 
peace and good order at home, avoided all foreign wars, intro- 
duced many wholesome laws, which long survived his age, and 
appears to have been among the very best, though also the most 
obscure, of the sovereigns who governed Italy, or indeed Europe, 
in modern times. When he could no longer avoid war, and the 
country was invaded by Florence, he made as gallant and obsti- 
nate a resistance as ever was offered to unprincipled aggression ; 
and his reign was only cut short by a foul conspiracy, which 
those who favoured a surrender to the enemy assisted. He was 
seized and sent to Milan a prisoner, and ended his days in a 
dungeon. 

The old republican government was immediately restored, and 
lasted, with few changes, down to the middle of the sixteenth 
century (1551), when the discontent of the workmen at laws 
made to favour the masters produced a revolt, and they were 
appeased by adding to the general council a proportion of wealthy 
or respectable persons not belonging to the class of popular or 
burgher nobles. But the next year, the government having 
obtained a body-guard, and being aided by the militia of the 
country districts, this law was repealed, and the former exclusive 
system restored. In 1554 the imperialists in league with Cos- 
mo I., of Florence (Medici), having overpowered Sienna, and 
reduced it by famine to capitulate, on the solemn promise of pre- 
serving its liberty and constitution, and this promise having been 
shamefully broken, so that Sienna was, with the rest of the Tus- 
can states, entirely subjugated; a law was proposed and adopted, 
called, from its author, Martino Bernadini, the Martinian law, by 
which all persons were absolutely and perpetually excluded from 
office who were either born out of the city, or who were sons of 
such, or of any country proprietor. The practical result of this 
regulation (B. An. Loc. lib. xv.) was to vest the government en- 
tirely in the hands of a limited number of families, who could 
never be increased, and it engrossed the government as completely 
as the famous Serrata did that of Venice. The result was that in 
1600 there were only one hundred and eighty-six families capable 






CH. XXVII.] SAN MARINO. 367 

of holding office; and in 1797, on the French invasion, only 
eighty-eight — in fact not enough to afford the number of persons 
wanted to fill all the offices in the republic. 



There still exists, after the utter subversion of all other com- 
monwealths, a small republic, with a mixed aristocratical govern- 
ment, which we may shortly describe in this place, though it 
ought perhaps to have been treated of under another head. The 
state of San Marino has survived all the changes which the rest 
of Italy underwent, first in the dark ages, then in the times of 
struggle between the emperor and the papal see, afterwards in 
the foreign aggressions which changed the possession, and the 
domestic usurpations which altered the government of all the other 
commonwealths, and lastly in the revolutionary times near our 
own day. It is in truth the smallest and the most ancient govern- 
ment in Europe, dating its commencement from the eighth cen- 
tury, if we count it as founded when the town was built, or from 
the tenth, if we date it by the time when it became walled 
for defence. The small extent and importance of this district 
has been the cause of its escaping the general fate. The popes 
frequently attempted to seize possession of it, and it took part 
with the Ghibellines, or imperialists. Innocent IV. laid it under 
excommunication ; and at the end of the thirteenth century, the 
rector sent by Boniface VIII. to govern that part of Romagna, 
Urbino, in which San Marino lies, sent a vicar, or lieutenant, to 
Montefeltro, of which San Marino is part, in order to enforce the 
payment of dues claimed by the See of Rome. The inhabitants 
refused, and the matter being referred to a judge of Rimini, a 
man of learning and probity, he decreed that the republic was, 
and had from all time been, independent. A charter was accord- 
ingly granted to it by the papal vicar. The popes never after- 
wards persevered in their attempts against this little community ; 
Napoleon gained some cheap popularity by respecting its inde- 
pendence, when he overran Italy in later times; and on the 
pope's restoration in 1814 the independence of the republic was 
confirmed. The extent of the territory is confined to twenty-seven 
square miles, chiefly of a steep mountain, with some fertile 
valleys, lying about ten miles from the Adriatic coast : it has 
one town, and 7000 inhabitants in all. 



368 GOVERNMENT OF SAN MAKINO. [CH. XXVI I. 

The government of San Marino is vested in a General Council 
of Anziani, three hundred in number,, and an executive council, 
or senate of twelve, with a Gonfaloniere, or chief magistrate, who 
is changed every three months. The other magistrates are called 
Capitani, and changed half-yearly. The council and senate are 
both composed half of nobles and half of burgesses ; but when 
any affair of extraordinary importance is to be discussed, the 
general assembly, or Parliament, is convoked, consisting of one 
member of each family. Civil and criminal justice is administered 
by a foreigner, a doctor of laws, who is chosen for three years, 
being the only remnant of the practice which we have seen at one 
time prevailed in all the communities of Italy. 



ch. xxvui.] 369 



CHAPTER XXVIIT. 

SWISS ARISTOCRACIES. 



Division of the Subject : — 1. Lucern — Feudal History — Early Constitution — Aristo- 
cracy established — Sovereign Council — Senate — Avoyers — Self-Election — Aristo- 
cracy popular — Consequences in French invasion — Act of Mediation, 1803 — New- 
Constitution — Policy of Napoleon — Constitution of 1814. 

2. Zurich — Early Aristocracy — Government more exclusive — Council — Senate — 
Constitution of 1803— of 1814. 

3. Bern — Early Constitution — Aristocracy introduced — Great Council — Senate — 
Seizeniers — Avoyers — Constitution of 1803 — of 1816 — Self-Election — Oligarchy. 

4. Geneva — Early History — Mixed Aristocracy — Parties — Great Council — Senate — 
Revolution of 1782 — Restoration of the old Government — Constitution of 1814 — 
Importance of Geneva. 

Several of the Swiss Cantons have always had governments 
either purely aristocratical or mixed aristocracies. It would not 
be profitable to examine minutely the whole of these constitutions, 
which, generally speaking, bear a close resemblance to one another, 
having grown up among the same people, in circumstances nearly 
similar, and in states which formed parts of the same Federal 
Union. It was chiefly in the larger cantons that the aristocratic 
polity prevailed ; and we shall single out three of them for exa- 
mination — Lucern, Zurich, and Bern ; because the two latter are 
by far the most important members of the whole Helvetic body, 
and because the first affords in some respects the example of the 
purest aristocracy, next to that of Venice, which survived to a 
recent period of time. To these Geneva may be added, on ac- 
count of certain peculiarities that belong to it, and on account of its 
celebrity in the world of science and letters. Lucern, or Luzern, 
is, in importance, the sixth of the cantons, Bern being the first. 
The population of Bern is above 400,000 souls; of Zurich, 
230,000; of Lucern, 124,000. 

1. Lucern joined the confederacy in the year 1332 : it has 
always been a Catholic state, and stands first in importance 

PART II. 2 B 



370 SWISS ARISTOCRACIES LUCERN. [CH. XXVIII. 

of the Catholic cantons. Originally this canton was a feudal 
seignory under an ecclesiastical superior, the abbot of Lucern, 
and a number of mesne lords under him, their superior. Its 
constitution at that period was of a purely democratic kind. 
The whole community deliberated in common upon the alter- 
ation to be made in the laws ; upon taxes to be raised, upon 
questions of peace and war, upon treaties of alliance. The re- 
solutions of the general assembly required to be ratified by a 
select council composed of eighteen selected burghers, who were 
changed every six months. The chief magistrate was called the 
Avoyer, and he had jurisdiction in civil matters. The abbot ap- 
pointed another executive officer, called the Amman, who was 
selected from the people, and with their concurrence. In Lucern, 
as in the greater part of Switzerland in the thirteenth century, the 
house of Hapsburg, under their able and politic chiefs, Rodolph 
and his son Albert, had obtained an overwhelming ascendent ; 
but when, at the beginning of the fourteenth, the three small 
cantons of Uri, Switz, and Unterwald joined in resisting their op- 
pressors, and gained the famous battle of Morgarten (1315), often 
termed the Swiss Marathon, the Austrian power was weakened, 
so that Lucern and other cantons joined them, and finally all had 
thrown off the yoke. 

The former democratic government did not long survive this 
event. The city or capital of the canton soon obtained an over- 
whelming influence ; and in the city, the more powerful families 
or nobles. This' was the natural consequence of the change that 
had been brought about. Under the feudal superiority of the 
abbot, and afterwards under the feudal monarchy of the Austrian 
family, the government was administered by the joint influence of 
the prince and the people, the barons holding their influence, as 
elsewhere, over their vassals, and thus having considerable weight 
in the general administration of affairs. But when there no longer 
was a chief, and a foreign chief with his guards, his revenue, his 
military power, and all the other resources of the imperfect Feudal 
Union, as the real power resided in the nobles, an aristocratic 
constitution grew up to maturity. The supreme power came to be 
vested in a sovereign council of one hundred members, chosen from 
the five hundred burghers of the city, the country people having no 
voice whatever in the government. But in fact the power did not 
reside in even this council at large, for it was divided into two 



CH. XXVI 1 1.] LUCERN ARISTOCRACY. 371 

bodies, — the senate or little council, and the great council. Now, 
the senate consisted of thirty-six members, who were divided into 
two bodies of eighteen each, and these alternately exercised the 
whole power of administration. They chose, or, as it was called, 
confirmed each other, and a few great families had the whole 
management of these elections ; their members succeeded one 
another, so as to make the places hereditary. In this senate was 
vested the whole administration of police and of finance, and, in 
fact, the executive government ; for though two avoyers, or chief 
magistrates, were appointed, they were senators, and they were 
changed every year. They were chosen by the great or sove- 
reign council of one hundred ; but in that council the senate 
exercised an overpowering influence ; for, in the first place, they 
formed above a third of its whole numbers; next they had the 
appointment of civil officers in their hands ; and lastly, they 
had also the patronage of all benefices, which were so valuable 
that two-thirds of the landed property of the country were in 
ecclesiastical hands. Moreover, the senate was a permanent body, 
always sitting, while the great council only was convoked upon 
special occasions. In the senate's hands was all criminal juris- 
diction, except that in capital cases the consent of the larger body 
was required. An appeal in civil suits likewise lay from the one 
body to the other. However, the voice of the senate in that 
larger body was sure to be preponderant. 

In one respect the powers of the aristocracy in Lucern appear 
to have suffered some, and even a considerable limitation. If 
any new tax was to be imposed, or any question decided of peace 
or war, or of foreign alliance, a general assembly of the burghers 
was necessary to give the resolution force. There was another 
restriction, resembling what we may remember to have found in 
the aristocracy of Venice. The jealousy of the Patrician order 
provided that father and son, nor any two members of the same 
family, could not sit at the same time in the senate. 

With these restrictions the government of Lucern was a pure 
aristocracy of an oligarchical aspect, and as such it continued for 
above five centuries, but without exciting any discontent in the 
people subject to its control. On the contrary its rule appears 
to have been popular, like that of Venice, and probably from the 
same cause, that it pressed lightly upon the middle and lower 
classes of the community. Accordingly when the hour of trial 

2 b 2 



372 SWISS ARISTOCRACIES LUCERN. [CH. XXVIII. 

came for all the ancient governments of Europe, the public voice 
was loudly raised in behalf of the existing order of things. All 
the attempts of the French emissaries to excite discontent signally 
failed. It was in vain that they spread their invectives against, 
aristocracy and oligarchy ; they spoke a language which the sub- 
jects of the Lucern patricians did not understand. In vain they 
offered emancipation from a thraldom which the people had 
never felt, or tendered them a state of liberty and equality for 
which they had no taste. Every such offer was rejected, and 
force was required at once to conquer the people and put down 
a government which they had so little mind to subvert, that they 
made its cause their own. The country was held in subjection 
by military power, with some intervals during the temporary 
overthrow of the French authorities by the misgovernment of the 
executive directory and the successes of the Russian and Austrian 
allies. But when the peace with Austria enabled the Emperor 
Napoleon to make a settlement of the Swiss affairs, a new con- 
stitution was given to Lucern as to the other twelve cantons, by 
the celebrated Act of Mediation, 19th of February, 1803. 

This constitution resembled the others in its general outline, 
though it was less aristocratic by a great deal. The legislative 
power, the superintendence of all executive functions, and the 
nomination to all offices extending over the whole canton, was 
vested in a Great Council of sixty members. Fifteen of these 
formed the Little or executive council ; and this had the power of 
proposing measures to the larger body, as well as of appointing 
all officers whose powers were local only. These fifteen were 
chosen by the sixty of whom they formed a portion. To elect the 
sixty, all the citizens of thirty years old if bachelors, or of twenty 
if married or widowers, and possessing property of thirty pounds 
value, had voices; and the election was a complicated one, of 
lot combined with choice, after the fashion of the Italian common- 
wealths. 

It is here to be observed that Napoleon and those able men 
whom he consulted, adopted as much of the former constitution as 
they could for the stock on which to engraft their changes. Who- 
ever attentively observes the structure of the greater and lesser coun- 
cils, with their relations to each other, will perceive that the model 
of the whole was the former government of the sovereign council 
and senate. 



CH. XXVIII.] PRESENT CONSTITUTION OF LUCERN. 373 

In 1814, the constitution of Lucern, as well as of the other 
cantons, underwent material alterations. The supreme power 
was now and is still vested in two councils, the council of one 
hundred and the daily council (quotidien), the latter being thirty- 
six members of the former. The whole hundred hold their places 
for life, and are chosen half by burghers of the city and half by 
the inhabitants of the country. The council itself names forty of 
the burgher members and twenty-nine of the country members ; 
the burghers name ten and the country citizens name the remain- 
ing twenty-one. The daily council consists of at least ten country 
members, and the whole thirty-six are chosen by itself from the 
great council. Beside being a burgher in the town and a citizen 
in the country, a voter must also pay taxes on a property of sixteen 
pounds value. Father and son, or two brothers, cannot sit to- 
gether in either council. 

The principal legislative power resides in the great council and 
the avoyers, its presidents, who are chosen by it from the daily 
council. All laws proposed by the daily council are adopted or 
rejected by the great council. All taxes are by it imposed or 
repealed. Any member, on giving notice to the avoyer, may pro- 
pose a law, which the great council either rejects at once or re- 
mits to the daily council, and it is only on its report or proposal 
that it can be further considered by the great council. The 
power of pardoning and all other sovereign attributes reside in the 
great council. The great council sits three times a year, and 
oftener if convoked by the daily council, which sits the whole 
year, and exercises the ordinary powers, executive, judicial, and 
administrative, of the government. 

2. Zurich, the second canton in point of extent and importance, 
was originally an imperial fief, and its capital had early a municipal 
charter and government. Like the Italian cities its constitution 
was at first democratic, but afterwards a kind of civic aristocracy, 
and it had, like them, constant struggles with the feudal nobility 
of the country. When, in the fourth century, the imperial power 
was overthrown and the canton joined the Helvetic confederacy, 
an aristocratic government grew up, though less purely such than 
in Lucern. As regarded the country it was equally so ; for the 
town, with less than a fifteenth of the inhabitants of the country, 



374 SWISS ARISTOCRACIES — ZURICH. [CH. XXVIII. 

engrossed the entire and exclusive possession of the powers of go- 
vernment. Its burghers,, about 2000 in number, had the election 
of the governing and sovereign council in their hands ; and after 
interposing many obstacles to the admission of new burghers, even 
to supplying vacancies occasioned by death and extinction of fami- 
lies, they came, in 1661, to a resolution, ever after acted upon, that 
no more should be admitted on any account. They were divided 
into thirteen tribes, of which one was noble, and had a great pre- 
ponderance; for while the others only chose twelve to the great 
council, the noble tribe chose eighteen. The sovereign council 
consisted of two hundred and twelve, but was called the council of 
two hundred; the senate, fifty in number, formed a part of it. 
The right of exercising trade in the city was most strictly confined 
to the burghers ; all strangers, and even thg inhabitants of the can- 
ton not being burghers, were excluded. The tribe of nobles never 
took part in commerce of any description ; they had the full right 
to do so, but regarded it as beneath their rank. 

The fifty who composed the senate were twenty-four tribunes 
and four councillors, chosen by the nobles, with twenty chosen by 
the sovereign council, to which two burgomasters were added. 
Twenty-five of the senate administered the government for six 
months, and the other twenty-five for the rest of the year. The 
council chose the burgomasters annually, and they were presidents 
of the senate by turns, each for six months. The legislative autho- 
rity resided in the council, the judicial in the senate, from which 
an appeal lay in civil cases only to the council. The only restraint 
in the senate was a yearly revision, by which they were liable to 
be changed ; but as the senators were fifty in number, and formed 
a large proportion of the council, this was little likely to happen. 
The nobles had manifestly a great preponderance in that body, and 
the government was thus formed on an aristocratic model, though 
very far from being so pure an aristocracy as that of Lucern. 

In 1803, the Act of Mediation changed the form of the consti- 
tution, and established a government on exactly the same prin- 
ciples which we have explained in the case of Lucern. The only 
material difference was in the numbers of the two councils ; the 
greater being composed of one hundred and eighty, the lesser of 
twenty-five. The latter were chosen by the whole body/ and they 
formed a part of it. 



CH. XXVIII.] PRESENT CONSTITUTION OF BERN. 375 

In 1814 a material change took place in this constitution. 
The exclusive power of the capital was no longer allowed; 
but all rights of election to the councils were apportioned as 
near as possible to the population of the different districts into 
which the canton was divided. The great council returned its 
number of two hundred and twelve ; the little was reduced from 
fifty to twenty-five ; all chosen by the great council from its own 
body as before. The great council are now to choose one hun- 
dred and thirty of its own members; the rest being chosen by the 
tribes, thirteen choosing two each, one choosing five and the 
others one each. The members of the little council hold their 
places for six years ; those of the great council hold theirs also for 
six years, one third going out every two years. The right of voting 
in the districts or tribes rests in those who in each are enrolled as 
burgesses ; and servants, insolvents, and convicts are alone ex- 
cluded. The citizen of one parish can be made a burgess hTany 
other. 

3. The town of Bern obtained a charter from the emperor in 
1218, constituting it a free city. The government was vested in a 
council, called the two hundred from its original number, but 
afterwards extended to two hundred and ninety-nine, all chosen 
from the burghers of the city. To this body all the canton was 
subject; and it appointed from its own members a senate to ad- 
minister the executive powers of the state. The general assembly 
of the burghers elected the council, every one having a vote who 
was possessed of a house in Bern. The assembly also chose the 
magistrates. The burghers were divided into four guilds ; the 
chief of each was called banneret, or standard-bearer, and he had 
great influence in the elections. By degrees the members of 
council prolonged their offices during life ; and the council after- 
wards usurped the power of filling up all vacancies, so that the 
government became aristocratical, or rather an oligarchy, a small 
number of powerful families obtaining the entire control of affairs. 
As in Italy, so here many of the feudal barons in the country became 
burghers of Bern, while others, waging war with the city, were de- 
feated, and forced to sell or surrender their demesnes, which thus 
gave enlarged wealth and power to the civic aristocracy. At the end 
of the thirteenth century Rodolph of Hapsburg in vain attempted 
to subdue the canton, and his son Albert was signally defeated in 



376 SWISS ARISTOCRACIES BERN. [CH. XXVIII. 

a similar attempt ten years after (1298). The Emperor Louis 
of Bavaria once more invested Bern; but was defeated in the 
great battle of Laupen in 1339. Friburg and the forest cantons 
having assisted the Bernese in this war, Bern a few years after- 
wards, in 1352, joined the Helvetic Confederacy. 

The constitution of Bern became gradually more aristocratic, 
until the meetings of the general assembly were wholly discon- 
tinued, and the great council engrossed the whole power of the 
state. It was in 1682 that the sovereignty was declared to reside 
in that body ; and it was restrained by no check of any kind. In 
Lucern the great questions of peace and war, of alliances, of tax- 
ation, could only, as we have seen, be decided by the General 
Assembly of the burghers. But no such restriction was imposed 
upon the council of Bern ; it had full authority in all matters 
whatever, without exception. It consisted, when full, of two hun- 
dred and ninety-nine members, and the vacancies could only be 
filled up when they came to eighty; but the rule was that they 
must be filled up when they amounted to a hundred. The new 
members were named partly by the avoyers, partly by the sei- 
zeniers, who were sixteen members of the council appointed 
yearly by lot, and partly by the accession of the persons claiming 
to be admitted in right of their offices. The senate consisted of 
twenty-seven persons, including the two avoyers, and all chosen 
by the great council, out of its own body. The choice was by a 
complicated ballot, of lot, and selection, after the Italian fashion. 
The avoyer and other magistrates were chosen by the great coun- 
cil : the avoyers for life ; the other officers for four and six years. 
The executive government was vested in the senate, which sits 
daily. 

. Although the government was, in the strictest sense, aristocratic, 
it was in great favour with the nation, and must be admitted to 
have secured the most important objects of all government, and, 
indeed, of all political society. Miiller, no friend of such systems 
in general, has pronounced it the constitution under which by far 
the greatest wisdom of administration was displayed for the 
greatest length of time. Other writers have compared the in- 
fluence and authority exercised by the patricians to that of guar- 
dians and parents over their wards and children ; and some have 
described the relation of the people to the aristocracy as resem- 
bling that of clients to their patrons. Accordingly the govern- 



CH. XXVIII.] PRESENT CONSTITUTION OF BERN. 377 

ment enjoyed entire confidence and esteem from the people, not- 
withstanding their exclusion by it from all share in the admini- 
stration of the public affairs : the French found but little support in 
their intrigues against it ; and their invasion was as much resisted 
by the whole nation as if all had borne a part in the management 
of its concerns. 

In 1803 the new constitution was imposed upon Bern by the 
famous Act of Mediation. In its outline it resembled the former 
government ; but the great council consisted now of only one 
hundred and ninety-five members; the little council retained its 
former number of twenty-seven. A council of state was added, 
consisting of the two oldest and two youngest members of the 
senate. Its office was to watch over the internal and external 
safety of the state, and report to the other councils. 

The most important change introduced into the constitution by 
this act was the restoration to the community of a voice in the 
choice of the great council. The avoyers were named by the 
great council out of the senate or lesser council ; the senate was 
chosen out of the great council, and by it ; the members of the 
great council were chosen, one-third by the tribes immediately and 
directly, two-thirds by lot out of lists sent by the councils of 
qualified persons. The latter council was changed two-thirds 
every two years. 

In 1816 the constitution of Bern was finally settled. The pre- 
amble of the constitutional act bears that the object of the 
authorities in forming the new government is to restore what 
was valuable in its ancient structure, and, at the same time, to 
place it in harmony with the wants of the present age — a most 
wise and salutary view, and which, if steadily pursued, cannot be 
too much commended. In one most important particular the 
ancient constitution is changed and improved; the country, both 
towns and rural districts, are admitted to a share, though certainly 
not an equal share, of the administration, formerly confined to the 
capital. The country is to have ninety-nine members of the 
great council, the capital two hundred. The qualification of the 
deputies is fixed at possessing the right of burgesses in a town or 
parish, being twenty-nine years of age, and having about 700/. 
in property. The right of becoming burgesses of the capital is 
also opened to the burgesses of the country. Of the ninety-nine 
country members the council itself chooses twenty-five. The 



378 SWISS ARISTOCRACIES — BERN. [cH. XXVIII. 

magistrates of each town choose its deputies; in the country 
parishes the choice is made by electoral colleges, according to a 
regulation not to be found in the Constitutional Act, though pro- 
mised by it. The two hundred deputies of the capital are chosen 
by an electoral college, composed of the little council, and a com- 
mittee of sixteen adjuncts taken from the great council. Here, 
therefore, we have the principle of self-election applied in its 
entire perfection to two hundred deputies for the town and twenty- 
five for the country ; so that a majority, in the proportion of three 
to one of the whole members of council, are not elected by the 
people in any way, but are appointed by themselves. The little 
council, chosen by the great, and of its own members, consists of 
twenty-seven. It is subject to annual confirmation, that is, elec- 
tion, and is therefore merely a committee of the whole body. The 
members of the great council themselves are said to be subject to 
the same annual confirmation ; whereas it is plain that the self- 
elected majority have at all times the absolute power of excluding 
from their own numbers any one who in any particular dissents 
from their opinion or opposes their designs. This annual confir- 
mation, or exclusion, is indeed performed by the council of sixteen, 
composed of the little council and sixteen assistants, chosen by lot. 
But suppose every one of the sixteen were drawn of the minority, 
there would still be a majority composed of twenty-seven, whom 
the majority of the great council had named and purged of all 
dissidents. The powers and functions of the two councils are 
nearly the same as those possessed by the same bodies under the 
more ancient constitution, which we have already described. 
Tne government of Bern may therefore well be deemed aristo- 
cratic. The admixture of democratic influence is small indeed. 

4. Geneva. — This territory was originally under the empire, 
first of Charlemagne, afterwards of his successors. As their feeble- 
ness increased, and lessened their authority, the bishops acquired 
the ascendent. The sovereigns counterbalanced this by granting 
privileges to the people of the towns, and fomenting discord be- 
tween the bishops and the feudal lords, or counts, who governed 
in the emperor's name. The counts then sold their territorial 
possessions to the Duke of Savoy, against whom the bishops 
united with the people. The counts now endeavoured to obtain 
a share in the episcopal authority, which thev could not resist, 



CH. XXVIII.] GENEVAN ARISTOCRACY. 379 

and, for this purpose, procured the nomination of their sons and 
brothers to the sees as they fell vacant. Early in the fourteenth 
century Charles III. of Savoy had vested in himself an absolute 
authority over the commonwealth, and he exercised great oppression 
upon the people. Two parties were now, in consequence, formed, 
one called the free or patriotic, the other the servile, which took 
part with the duke. After various struggles Geneva at length 
formed a treaty with Bern and Fribourg in 1526, and finally 
established a republican government, with the reformed religion, 
the duke and the bishops being alike expelled for ever. This 
led to immediate hostilities with Savoy, in the result of which 
Geneva was successful, and in 1584 was by treaty united with 
the Helvetic Confederacy. The last attempt against the state 
was made by Savoy in 1602, and it was not till 1764 that the 
Genevan independence was formally acknowledged. 

The government, though republican, was aristocratic, or, at 
least, had a strong mixture of aristocracy. There were four 
councils : the senate, or lesser council, of twenty- five ; the council 
of sixty, for the management of foreign affairs ; the great council, 
originally of two hundred, but afterwards composed of two hun- 
dred and fifty; and the sovereign council, or general assembly, 
of all citizens twenty-five years old. The sixty were chosen by 
the senate; the great council was originally elected by the general 
or popular assembly; but the patrician party, ingratiating them- 
selves with the people, obtained, as they were sure to do, from a 
class of men ever ready to give their confidence to persons of 
rank, and never suspecting any abuse of it till too late, the right 
of election to be taken from the general assembly, and vested in 
the councils themselves, so that the senate should choose, or, as 
it was called, confirm the council, and the great council should 
choose the senate. They likewise, in 1712, obtained from the 
general assembly a repeal of the law which had been made in 
1707, requiring that the assembly should every five years meet to 
deliberate on the most pressing public interests. 

The senate had the power of convoking the great council — of 
furnishing all magistrates from their own body — of naming the 
inferior magistrates — of choosing half the great council — of con- 
ferring rights of burghership — of superintending the financial 
administration — and, generally, of exercising the executive and 
judicial power of the state. The great council chose the senate, 



380 SWISS ARISTOCRACIES — GENEVA. [CH. XXVIII. 

had a veto on all its proceedings, and had the appeal from all its 
judicial sentences, as well as the general power of pardon. The 
general assembly, or council, consisted of 1500 burghers, of 
whom only 1200 could ever attend, the others being foreigners 
or incapable persons. It met twice a-year — chose the greater 
magistrates — decided on questions of peace or war, and alliances 
— had a veto on all legislative acts of the two other councils — 
and chose half the great council. Four of the senate might be 
removed yearly, and four syndics were chosen from the senate by 
the general council; these syndics must be three years out of 
office before they were re-elected ; and, if all the senators w T ere 
rejected by the general council, four must retire into the great 
council, and four new members be added, as syndics. 

In 1782 a revolution was effected in this republic, already 
abundantly tinctured with no small mixture of aristocracy. The 
power of the general council to name half the great council, or 
council of two hundred, was now taken away, and the great 
council obtained the right of annually confirming, that is, in fact, 
of annually choosing the senate. The citizens had hitherto been 
addicted to clubs, or circles as they were termed, political bodies 
which carried on constant discussions of all public measures, and 
exercised great influence over the proceedings of the legal and re- 
gular councils, as well as over all the administrative officers. 
These were now strictly prohibited, as were all assemblies, or 
meetings of the people. The militia was likewise abolished, and 
the right of bearing arms was taken from the citizens at large. 

Great heartburnings and much discontent was the consequence 
of this important change. The conflicting parties did not scruple 
to look abroad after the manner of all popular governments, 
ancient and modern, without, any monarchical head; and the de- 
feated faction called in the assistance of Savoy or Sardinia and 
France, in 1789. The former government was restored and the 
restrictions of 1782 were removed. The pure aristocracy then 
established became now mixed with democratic institui ions, though 
the aristocratic principle still manifestly prevailed in the compo- 
sition. 

This aristocracy was abolished by the new and still existing 
constitution established in 1814. All distinction of ranks is now 
abolished ; no noble class is recognised ; and the rule is that all 
Genevans are equal in the eye of the law. The government is 



CH. XXVIII.] PRESENT CONSTITUTION OF GENEVA. 381 

vested in two councils; a representative council of two hundred 
and fifty, and a lesser, or council of state, of twenty-eight members. 
The former is elected by all persons twenty- five years old, who 
pay six pounds in direct taxes and are not in arrear, and who are 
armed and equipped for the militia, or have some lawful exemp- 
tion from that service. The clergy, the members of the uni- 
versity, the academy, and other similar establishments, are en- 
titled to vote, whether they pay the fixed sum in taxes or not. 
Thirty members of the great council go out yearly. No more 
than five persons of the same name and family can sit in it at one 
time. The members of the council of state are named by the 
great council, but are not immoveable unless the great council 
pleases, which it may yearly, to exercise a scrutiny, in which case 
whatever members have one hundred and twenty-six votes against 
them, go out of the council of state and retire into the great 
council, which chooses others of its number to succeed them. 
More than two of a name or family cannot sit in the council of 
state. The power of proposing measures to the great council is 
vested in the council of state, together with the direction of the 
finances, that is, the receipt and expenditure of the taxes voted by 
the great council. The executive functions generally of the go- 
vernment reside in the council of state ; such as the direction of 
foreign affairs, subject to the great council approving or rejecting 
any treaties made. 

The great or representative council has the legislative power, 
on the proposition of measures by the council of state. It also 
raises or remits, or changes all taxes, appoints to all the more 
considerable offices, and receives yearly the council of state's re- 
port of its administration. 

There are four syndics or executive magistrates named yearly 
from the council of state and the great council. This election is 
by ballot. 

The republic of Geneva is, except that of San Marino, the 
smallest state in territory and population in the world, having 
only 125 square miles of surface and 25,000 inhabitants. But 
its cultivation of letters and philosophy, and the eminent men 
whom it has given to the world in both departments, give an 
interest to whatever concerns it, far beyond the importance of its 
extent, population, and wealth. Few countries of much greater 



382 SWISS ARISTOCRACIES — GENEVA. [CH. XX VIII. 

consideration have contributed more useful works to the diffusion 
of literary and scientific knowledge : few have raised so many in- 
genious and learned men who devote themselves to a diligent 
pursuit of learning, and to the education of youth in its various 
departments. 



NOTE. 



There now only remain the subjects of Democracy and Mixed or 
Limited Monarchy to complete this branch of Political Philosophy, 
and so give the whole that belongs to the Structure of Government. 
Its Functions, comprising Political Economy, will follow. 

Of Democracy we have already treated incidentally only, and in the 
connexion which it necessarily bears with Aristocracy. We have been 
obliged, however, to give the Athenian Constitution, partly in order 
to show how groundless the notion is of those who class it with the 
ancient Aristocratic Commonwealths, partly because it was inconven- 
ient to separate it from the other ancient Governments, when it threw 
so great a light, by comparison, upon their structure and working. 



INDEX. 



Abate, vide Genoa. 

Achaia, 249. 

Adelardi, family of, 297. 

JEdiles, 143. 

TElian law, 140. 

JEtatu, 121. 

^tolian government, 248. 

Agis, vide Sparta. 

Agrarian laws, 133,134. 

Alberghi, vide Genoa. 

Albizzi, vide Florence. 

Alcibiades, vide Athens. 

Alcmaenidae, vide Athens. 

Ali Ispan, vide Hungary. 

Ambitus, 100. 

American courts of justice com- 
pared with the lleliaea of Athens, 
223; United States, a pure de- 
mocracy in, 4 ; war, reflexions on 
the, 100. 

Anziani, office of, 302, vide also 
Lucca, San Marino, Milan, and 
other Italian republics. 

Archagetae, vide Sparta. 

Archons, vide Athens. 

Areopagus, vide Athens. 

Aristides, vide Athens. 

Aristocracy, definition of, 1; pure, 
a rare occurrence, 2 ; errors on, 
ib. ; Roman and Athenian govern- 
ments not an, ib. ; germs of, in 
the Roman government, 3 ; mix- 
ed, of Rome, ib. ; pure, found in 
Venice and some other Italian 
states, 4 ; lasting in Sparta, ib. ; 
tendency of, to mix with other 
constitutions, 17 ; this tendency 
greater in, than in democracy, 
18 ; becomes established in a na- 
tion when it is in a state of igno- 
rance, 19 ; weakened by the pro- 
gress of the people in wealth and 
intelligence, ib. ; best course for the, 
to follow, 20 ; illustration of this 
from colonial emancipation, ib. ; 
ends usually in a monarchy, ib. ; 
natural introduction of oligarchy 
into, 21 ; examples of this from 
the governments of Venice, Ge- 
noa, Sienna, and Lucca, 22 ; na- 



tural foundation of, 23 ; influence 
of independent circumstances, 24 ; 
of wealth, ib. ; of the length of 
time during which superiority is 
possessed, ib. ; artificial founda- 
tion of, 27 ; illustration of this 
from the history of Rome, Sparta, 
Feudal governments, modern 
Italy, ib. ; two-fold tendency of 
natural, 29 ; natural will always 
get the administration of public 
affairs in every country, 31 ; prac- 
tical considerations deduced from 
the examination of the natural, 
33 ; origin of party in, 34 ; of 
Venice exempt from party, 35; 
of other Italian republics greatly 
subject to parties, 30 ; defects of, 
48 ; irresponsibility of rulers in 
an, ib. ; not subject to public 
opinion, 49 ; compared with other 
governments in this respect, 50 ; 
uncontrolled by fear of personal 
violence, 51 ; interests of, in con- 
flict with public duty, ib. ; illus- 
tration thereof from the history of 
Rome, 52 ; from the constitution 
of France and England, 53 ; evils 
of an hereditary, 55 ; tendency 
of, to make bad rulers, ib. ; ten- 
dency of, to corrupt morals, 50 ; 
galling yoke of, ib. ; merits of, 
57 ; firmness of purpose, ib. ; re- 
sistance to change of, 58 ; illus- 
tration thereof from the English 
House of Lords, ib. ; resistance 
to change of, often carried too 
far, 59 ; contrast between, and 
democracy in this respect, ib. ; 
republican attempts to resist the 
growth of a natural, ib. ; pacific, 
with the exception of those of 
Rome and Venice, 00 ; encourages 
talent, particularly in arts and 
literature, ib. ; promotes the spirit 
of personal honour, 01 ; contrast 
with the democracy in that re- 
spect, ib. ; opinion of Father Paul 
on the same subject, 02; assists 
the functions of magistrates, ib. 



384 



INDEX. 



Aristocratic body, error committed 
in the English colonies by not 
introducing an, into their govern- 
ment, 62. 
Aristocracies, individual influence 
in, 63 ; partial delegation of su- 
preme power in, ib. 
Aristocracy, Feudal and Civic in 
Italy, 64 ; Feudal in Poland, 65 ; 
operation of, on government, 66 ; 
illustration thereof from English 
history, 67 ; testimony of the 
monkish historians on the same 
subject, ib. ; tendency of, towards 
a mixed government, 71 ; may 
be really pure when apparently 
mixed, ib. ; instances thereof in 
Venice, Genoa, Lucca, San Ma- 
rino, ib. ; natural, 168 ; of middle 
classes, 170 ; artificial in Sparta, 
195 ; natural in Sparta, 196 ; rise 
of, in Italy, 251 ; founded in Ve- 
nice, 263; in Genoa, 312, 321, 
325 ; natural in Florence, 351 ; 
burgher in Sienna, 360 ; of Swit- 
zerland, 369 ; of Lucern, 370, 371; 
of Zurich, 373; of Bern, 375; 
of Geneva, 379. 
Aristocratical polity triumphs in 

Florence, 352. 
Aristotle's opinions on Greek go- 
vernments, 176, 177, 180, 191, 
193, 197, 199. 
Arnold's Roman history, 134. 
Arts and letters prosper in Italy, 

308. 
Arpad, dynasty of, in Hungary, 

86. 
Arva, district of, Hungary, 87. 
Athens, constitution of, 204 ; early 
history, ib. ; Cecrops, ib. ; The- 
seus, 205 ; three-fold division of 
the people in, ib. ; eupatridae, 
geomori, demiurgi, ib. ; ancient 
officers in, prytaneum, polemar- 
chi, colacretae, naucrarii, phylo- 
basileis, 206 ; panathenaea, ib. ; 
kings, ib.; archons, ib.; eupatridae, 
207 ; polemarch, eponymus, basi- 
leus, thesmotethae, ib. ; classes, pe- 
draei, diacrii, peealii, ib. ; anarchy, 
ib. ; Draco, 208 ; Solon, ib. ; er- 
rors respecting Solon's legislation, 
ib. ; Solon's reforms, archons, col- 
leges, paredii, 209 ; courts of jus- 
tice, ib. ; Areopagus, 210; Heli- 
astae, ib. ; inferior magistrates, 
ib. ; pure democracy, ib. ; classes 
of the people, ib. ; population, ib. ; 



Slaves, 211; effects of slavery, ib. ; 
Xenophon, Plato, Diogenes, ib. ; 
phylae, phratriee, genea, trityes, 
demi, ib. ; the ecclesia, 212 ; se- 
nate, 214 ; elections, scrutiny, 
ib. ; prytanes, epistata, ib. ; eu- 
thynae, logistae, 215 ; voting, bal- 
lot, 216 ; areopagus, 217 ; its 
powers, ib. ; its composition, 218 ; 
logistae, euthynae, ib. ; Mars hill, 
St. Paul, 220 ; heliaea, 221 ; 
American court, 223; ephetae, 
ib. ; other checks besides the 
areopagus, 224 ; state and public 
orators, ib. ; payment of func- 
tionaries, ib. ; rules as to alter- 
ation of the laws, 225 ; nomo- 
thetes, 226 ; eponymi, ib. ; syn- 
dics, ib. ; direct repeal required, 
ib.; impeachment for illegal legis- 
lation, 227 ; quorum, 228 ; prohi- 
bition of repeal, 229 ; power of 
adjournment, ib. ; appeal and 
reconsideration, 230 ; ostracism, 
231 ; general feeling against this, 
233 ; orators, their influences, 
234 ; advocates and professional 
orators, ib.; legislative and judicial 
functions combined, 18 ; corrup- 
tion of statesmen, 235 ; Demo- 
sthenes, 236 ; Whigs in Charles 
II.'s reign, 236 ; Demades, ib. ; 
corruption, faction, and fickle- 
ness of the people, 237; turbu- 
lence of assemblies, 238 ; radical 
vices of the system, ib. ; advan- 
tages derived from the system, 
239 ; parties in, 241 ; dalesmen, 
mountaineers, coastmen, and 
trimmers, ib. ; the Alcmaenidae, 
ib. ; usurpation of the Pisistratidae, 
ib.; their downfall, 242; Pisis- 
tratus, ib. ; Clisthenes, ib. ; Mil- 
tiades, 243 ; Popular ingratitude, 
ib. ; fables of Marathon, ib. ; de- 
mocratic reform, 244 ; Aristides, 
ib. ; barbarous popular excesses, 
ib. ; Themistocles, ib. ; Athenian 
greatness, ib. ; Pericles, 245 ; Al- 
cibiades, ib. ; Thirty Tyrants, ib. ; 
faction, 246 ; rebellion, 247 ; So- 
crates, ib. 
Athens, duke of, vide Florence. 
Augurs, 149. 
Auspices, law of, 140. 
Avogadi, vide Genoa. 
Avogadors, vide Venice. 
Avoyers, vide Lucern, Bern. 



INDEX. 



385 






Bacon's, Lord, opinion on ancient 
and new nobility, 26. 

Basileus, vide Athens. 

Bayle's cr ticism of history, 99. 

Beaufort'si work on Rome, 100, 161. 

Bentham's denial of checks in the 
constitution, 5. 

Bern, early constitution of, 375 ; 
aristocracy introduced, ib. ; great 
council, 376 ; senate, seizeniers, 
avoyers, ib. ; constitution of 1803, 
377; of 1816, ib. ; self- election, 
378 ; oligarchy, ib. 

Bianchi and Neri, vide Florence. 

Binis comitiis, controversy de, 144. 

Boccanegro, Gullielmoand Siinone, 
vide Genoa. 

Boeotian government, or Bceotar- 
chy, 248. 

Bologna, creation of nobles in, 22 ; 
early charter and government 
of, 356 ; early regularity of the 
constitution, ib. ; consuls, coun- 
cils, podesta, public orators, 357 ; 
party feuds, ib. ; Gierenci and 
Lambertazzi, ib.; loss of liberty, ib. 

Bonifazzi and Montecchi, 297. 

Bulla aurea, vide Hungary. 

Buondelmonti, vide Florence. 

Burke's defence of party, 45. 

Burke lauds the Polish constitution 
of 1791, 76. 

Caesar, Julius, character of, 151, 
161, 163. 

Calabria, duke of, vide Sienna. 

Can della Scala, 302. 

Candia, vide Venice. 

Candidatio, t vide Hungary. 

Canulejus, law of, 155. 

Capite censi, 111. 

Capitano del Popolo, vide Genoa. 

Carmagnola, vide Venice. 

Carrara, vide Venice. 

Castellan, vide Poland. 

Cassa domestica and militaris, vide 
Hungary. 

Castri, vide Genoa. 

Castruccio Castracani, vide Lucca. 

Catiline's conspiracy, 173. 

Cecrops, vide Athens. 

Censors in Rome, 125, 126, 127. 

Centumviri, 151. 

Centuries, 111. 

Charles V., emperor, takes posses- 
sion of Milan, 340. 

Checks, system of, in the consti- 
tution of England, extolled by 
many writers, 5 ; their existence 

PART II. 



dogmatically denied by Bentham 
and his school, ib. ; this denial 
founded on theory alone, 6 ; doc- 
trine of the, in the British con- 
stitution misconceived, ib. ; doc- 
trine of, explained, 7 ; foundation 
of this doctrine, 8 ; fallacy of the 
objections to this doctrine ex- 
posed, 9 ; illustration of this doc- 
trine from joint powers, 10 ; from 
mutual veto, ib. ; from a factious 
majority, ib. ; from the British 
constitution and the proceedings 
in parliament since 1832, 11; 
from balance of powers in par- 
liament, 12 ; from dynamics, ib. ; 
proper, or perfect, and imperfect, 
13; examples of proper, from 
Roman constitution, ib. ; exam- 
ples of imperfect, from the Veni- 
tian constitution, and absolute 
governments, 14; examples of 
imperfect from the constitution 
of England and of the United 
States of America, 15. 

Checks on the power of the people 
in Rome, 171 ; in general, 172. 

Chrysonetes, vide Crete. 

Cicero, 101, 112, 114, 126, 139, 147, 
158, 161, 162, 173. 

Cinadon, vide Sparta. 

Cincinnati, order of, in America, 
abolished by the jealousy of the 
democratic party, 59. 

Ciompi, vide Florence. 

Civic nobility in Italy, 64. 

Cleomenes, vide Sparta. 

derates, vide Crete. 

Clients in Rome, 105, 106, 119; 
in different parts of Greece, 122. 

Clisthenes, vide Athens. 

Clodia lex, 128. 

Cluverius's work on ancient Italy, 
100. 

Collacretee, vide Athens. 

Collegio, vide Venice. 

Colonies,' which is the wisest policy of 
the mother-country towards its, 20. 

Comitia curiata, 107, 136, 163 ; tri- 
buta, 136. 

Compitalia, 111. 

Condottieri, 306, 330. 

Confederation, vide Poland. 

Congregationes generales, vide 
Hungary. 

Conscripti, 130. 

Consuls in the Italian cities, 255, 
vide also Milan, &c. ; of Rome, 
116, 132, 142, 146. 

2c 



386 



INDEX. 



Corcyra, government of, 248. 

Cornelian law, 151. 

Cosmi, vide Crete. 

Cragius, on Sparta, 180. 

Credenza in the Italian cities, 255, 
vide also Genoa, Milan, and other 
Italian republics. 

Crete, constitution of, 175; cosmi, 
eponymus, 176 : periceci, ib. ; 
clerotes, chry?onetes, ib. ; pure 
aristocracy established, 177 ; re- 
sistance, ib. ; federal government 
established, ib. ; isopoliteja, ib. 

Curia, 104. 

Curio, office of, 129. 

Curule offices, 126. 

Custos urbis, 129, 140. 

Czartoryski, family of, their gran- 
deur and patriotism, 75 ; splen- 
dour in which they lived, and 
noble sacrifices submitted to by 
its present representative, 85. 

Dante's passage on the effects of 

faction, 42. 
Decemviri, 141. 
Demades, vide Athens. 
Demi, vide Athens. 
Demiurgi, vide Athens. 
Democracy, definition of, 1 ; pure, 
a rare occurrence, 2 ; errors on, 
ib. ; pure in the United States of 
America, 4 ; tendency of, to mix 
with other constitutions, 17 ; this 
tendency lesser in, than in aris- 
tocracy, 18 ; responsibility of 
rulers in, 48 ; tyranny of, 54 ; 
better calculated than aristocracy 
to form virtuous and able citizens, 
55 ; inclined to changes, 59 ; en- 
deavours to resist the growth of 
natural aristocracy, ib. 

Demosthenes, vide Athens. 

Despotism has no tendency to mix 
itself with other institutions, rea- 
sons thereof, 17. 

Diacri, vide Athens. 

Dictator in Rome, 131, 144. 

Diets, vide Poland, Hungary. 

Dietines, vide Poland. 

Diogenes, vide Athens. 

Dionysius, 98, 99, 121, 122, 124, 136. 

Divinatio, 152. 

Divisores, 160. 

Doge, vide Genoa, Venice. 

Draco, vide Athens. 

Ecclesia, vide Athens, Sparta. 
Education, origin of the word, 188. 



Elizabeth, Empress of Russia, 75. 

Emmius, on Sparta, 180. 

England, revolution of, compared 
to that of Rome, 118; govern- 
ment compared with that of Ve- 
nice, 291 ; dominions of, com- 
pared with those of Venice, 279. 

Ephetae, vide Athens. 

Ephori, vide Sparta. 

Eponymus, vide Athens, Crete. 

Equality impossible, 23; attempts 
made to insure, ib. 

Equites, 109. 

Eupatridse, vide Athens. 

Euthynae, vide Athens. 

Ezzelino da Romano, 299. 

Faction, vide Party. 
Falieri, Marino, vide Venice. 
Fasti dies, 139. 

Feciales, office of, in Rome, 108. 
Feodor Ivanovitch, czar of Muscovy, 
candidate for the throne of Po- 
land, 74. 
Feudal plan is monarchical, 250. 
Feudal nobility in the Venetian 

terra-firma, 295. 
Flamen, office of, in Rome, 108. 
Florence joins the league late, 341 ; 
early constitution of, 342 ; consuls, 
quarters, senate, ib. ; burgher aris- 
tocracy, ib. ; at first mixed, then 
pure, ib. ; podesta established, 
343 ; factions — Buondelmontiand 
Uberti, Guelfs and Ghibellines, 
ib. ; podesta expelled, and new 
government established, 344 ; old 
constitution restored, ib. ; new 
constitution after Manfred's de- 
feat, 345 ; two councils, ib. ; party 
government within the govern- 
ment, ib. ; parallel with the Jaco- 
bin club, 346 ; new constitution, 
ib. ; its anomalies and absurdities, 
347 ; factious turbulence, ib. ; in- 
terferes with justice and police, ib.; 
ordinances of justice, ib. ; popular 
aristocracy ; Popolani grossi, 348 ; 
Bianchi and Neri, 348 ; absurdi- 
ties of party, 349 ; new mode of 
electing the seignory, ib. ; burgher 
oligarchy, 350 ; duke of Athens, 
ib. ; progress of tyranny, ib. ; 
changes in the constitution, 351 ; 
new party divisions ; natural aris- 
tocracy, ib. ; Albizzi and Ricci, 
352; factious violence, ib. ; ciom- 
pi, mob-government, ib.; triumph 
of the aristocratic polity, ib. ; in- 



INDEX. 



387 



flucnee of free institutions, 352; 
of democratic government, 353 ; 
grandeur of, ib. ; feudal and 
burgher economy, 354. 

Fo-Ispan, vide Hungary. 

Foreign appeals common in the 
Greek republics. 244. 

Foscari, vide Venice, 

Fox's defence of party, 45. 

France, effects of the extinction of 
aristocratic influence on, 53 ; re- 
volution of, compared with that 
of Rome, 118. 

French republicans, disinterested- 
ness of the, 56; conquest of Ge- 
noa, 321. 

Friars, rise of, in [taly,297; their 
usurpations, 298. 

Gastaldioni, office of, 303. 

Genoa, vide Athens. 

Geneva, early history of, 378 ; mix- 
ed aristocracy, 37!) ; parlies, ib. ; 
gr< at council, ib. ; senate, ib. ; re- 
volution of L782, 380; restoration 
of the old government, ib. ; con- 
stitution of L814, ib.] importance 
of, 381. 

Gei ma, early history of, 310; Pisan 
alliances and conquests, 311 ; con- 
stitution of 1096, ib. ; aristocracy, 
312; parties of the nobles, ib. ; 
Avogadi and castri, ib. ; podes- 
ta, 313; turbulence of the fac- 
tions, ib.; parties of Cortes and 
Voltas, ib.; constant revolutions, 
ib. ; companies of art, ib. ; cre- 
denza, ib. ; oligarchy establish- 
ed, 314 ; abate, ib.; capitano del 
popolo, ib. ; Gullelmo Bocane- 
gro's usurpation, 315 ; fickleness 
of the inhabitants of, ib. ; Simeon 
Bocanegro, 310 ; party move- 
ments and civil conflicts, ib.; Vis- 
contis called in, 317 ; Perpetual 
revolutions, ib. ; new nobility, 
their power, their factions, 318 ; 
conflict with the old, 319 ; revo- 
lution, ib ; French conquest, ib. ; 
taken by the emperor ; Doria's 
history, 220 ; Doria s noble con- 
duct and reforms, 321 ; final aris- 
tocratic constitution, ib.; attempts 
to extinguish party, 322 ; Al- 
berghi, ib. ; new factions, ib. ; 
councils or signoria, 323 ; doge, 
324 ; syndics, ib. : inquisitors, ib. ; 
judicial administration, ib. ; gall- 
ing yoke of the aristocracy, 325 ; 



folly of the new nobles and ple- 
beians, ib. ; oligarchical periods, 
326; government of compared 
with that of Venice, ib. 

Genoese settlements, oligarchy of, 
327 ; Justiniani, ib. 

Gentes, vide Rome. 

Geomori, vide Athens. 

Ghibellines, vide Guelfs. 

Gierenci, vide Bologna, 

Giunigi, Paul, vide Sienna. 

Gonfaloniere, vide Lucca, San Ma- 
rino. 

Gottling'a theory of the early divi- 
sions of the Roman people, 104. 

Greece, authorities on the history 
of, 174 ; false chronology, ib. ; 
ages of the historians, 175; early 
history of, ib. 

Grachius on Rome, 144. 

Guelfs and Ghibellines at Florence, 
343. 

Harmostae, vide Sparta. 

Harmosynae, vide Sparta. 

Haruspices, 14!). 

Ileliaca, vide Athens. 

Heliastae. vide Athens. 

1 1 clots, vide Sparta. 

Henry of Huntingdon, a monkish 
historian, quoted, 09; of Valois, 
king of Poland, 74. 

Hereditary distinctions, foundation 
of respect for, 25 ; their effects on 
individuals possessed of them, 20 ; 
privilege, vide Aristocracy. 

Hippagretae, vide Sparta. 

Ifonioioi, vide Sparta. 

Homo-phylaces, vide Sparta. 

Horatian law, 151. 

Hortensian law, 130. 

Hottoman's work on Rome, 129. 

Hume's opinions quoted, 38, 137. 

Hungary, history of, 80 ; Lombard 
conquest of, ib. ; Magyars, ib. ; 
dynasty of Arpad, ib. ; dynasty of 
Austria, ib. ; feudal circumstances 
in, ib. ; nobles of, 87 ; their pri- 
vileges, cardinal and non-cardi- 
nal, ib. ; tenure of fiefs, ib. ; mag- 
nates, 88 ; bulla aurea, ib. ; titled 
nobles, ib. ; diet, ib. ; representa- 
tion, proxies, votes, tabula per- 
sonalis, 89 ; functions of the diet, 
90 ; taxes, 91 ; cassa domestica and 
militaris, ib. ; Count Szechini's 
efforts to introduce reforms, 92 ; 
local county administration, ib. ; 
functions of Fo - Ispan and 



388 



INDEX. 



Ali-Ispan, ib. ; of Szolgo birag, 
ib. ; congregationes gene?°ales,93; 
municipal government, Koszeg, 
ib. ; village government, ib. ; 
powers of the crown, 94 ; indige- 
nat, ib. ; sale of titles, ib. ; pea- 
santry, ib. ; urbarium of Maria 
Theresa, 95 ; lords' power, ib. ; 
robot, ib. ; lords' courts, ib. ; re- 
forms in these, ib. ; new urbarium, 
ib. ; Prince Metternich's reforms, 
96 ; military system, ib. ; insur- 
rectionary army, ib. ; military 
frontier, ib. 

Hungarian prejudices in favour of 
their constitution, 97 ; conclusion 
of this subject, ib. 

Hungary, works on, ib. 

Hypomeiones, vide Sparta. 

Ignorance of the people makes it in- 
different to the public affairs, 19. 

Indigenat, vide Hungary. 

Inquisitors, vide Venice, Genoa. 

Interreges, 129. 

Interrex, 145. 

Irish independence, reflections on, 
166. 

Isopoliteia, vide Crete. 

Italian governments,municipal con- 
stitutions, and aristocracy, 250; 
feudal plan monarchical, ib. ; rise 
of aristocracy, 251 ; civic nobility, 
253 ; Othon first grants munici- 
pal institutions to the towns, 254 ; 
general form of government of 
their towns, 255; consuls, ib. ; 
credenza, ib. ; senate, ib. ; parlia- 
ment, ib. ; wars of the cities, 255 ; 
Pavia and Milan, 256 ; war of the 
towns, 257 ; treaty of Constance, 
ib. 

Jacobin club compared witli party 
government in Florence, 346. 

Jagellon dynasty in Poland, 73. 

John Albert, king of Poland, 84. 

John Casimir, king of Poland, 74; 
ofVicenza, 298; Jordan of Pa- 
dua, 299. 

Judicial system of Rome, 150. 

Justiniani, vide Genoa. 

Kosciusko, 76. 
Koszeg, vide Hungary. 

Logisthae, vide Athens. 
Lambertazzi, vide Bologna. 
Letters and arts flourish in Italy, 
308. 



Liberum veto, vide Poland. 

Licinian rogations, 133. 

Lictors, 109. 

Lion's Mouth, vide Venice. 

Lithuania, vide Poland. 

Livy, 98, 99, 109, 112, 122, 124, 125, 
126, 136, 144, 162. 

Lombards, unfitness of, for self- 
government, 334. 

Lords, house of, resistance of the, to 
change, beneficial to the country, 
58. 

Luceres, 105. 

Lucern, feudal history of, 369 ; early 
constitution, ib. ; aristocracy esta- 
blished, ib. ; sovereign council, ib.; 
senate, 371 ; avoyers, ib. ; self-elec- 
tion, ib. ; aristocracy popular, ib. ; 
consequence of this popularity in 
the French invasion, 372 ; act of 
mediation, ib. ; policy of Napoleon, 
ib. ; constitution of 1814, 373. 

Lucca, revolutions in, deserving of 
attention, 364 ; early government 
and parties, ib. ; Castruccio Cas- 
tracani's services and usurpation, 
ib. ; good conduct of the inhabit- 
ants of, 365; anziani, gonfalo- 
niere, college, government coun- 
cil, ib. ; practical oligarchy, ib. ; 
Paul Giunigi, ib. ; his great merit, 
366 ; cruel fate, ib. ; republic re- 
stored, ib. ; perfidy and conquest 
of the Medici, 366 ; Martinian 
law, ib. ; oligarchy finally esta- 
blished, ib. ; its permanence, 367. 

Lycurgus, vide Sparta. 

Lysander, vide Sparta. 



Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, 
100. 

Machiavellis errors in Roman his- 
tory, 102. 

Magister equitum, 110. 

Magnates, vide Hungary. 

Manfred's, emperor, defeat, follow- 
ed by a new constitution in Flo- 
rence, 315. 

Manilian law, 147 

Manutius, P., errors in the history 
of Rome, 102. 

Marathon, vide Athens. 

Marino, San, antiquity of the go- 
vernment of, 367; extent and 
population, ib. ; constitution, an- 
ziani, senate, gonfaloniere, capi- 
tani, judicial authority, 368. 

Martinian law, vide Lucca. 



INDEX. 



389 



Mediation, act of, vide Luccrn, Zu- 
rich, Bern. 

Medici, vide Lucca, Sienna, Flo- 
rence. 

Mr. nun Tmperium, 151. 

Messenians, 15)0. 

Moursius on Sparta, 180. 

Middleton's error respecting Cicero, 
17: 1. 

Milan, government of, 328; coun- 
cils, ib. ; podestas, ib. ; credenza, 
ib. : patricians, 329 ; plebeians, 
ib. ; struggles of the orders, ib. ; 
cavalry, 330; condottieri, ib. ; fo- 
reign captain-general, 16.; finan- 
cial dictatorship, ib. ; companies, 
credenzas, motta, 321 ; councils, 
ib. ; defects of history in political 
matters, 332; Signordel Popolo, 
ib. ; Martiiio dolla Tone, 333 : 
Visconti completes Ids usurpa- 
tion, 33 I ; unprincipled conduct 
of both patricians and plebeians, 
ib. ; unfitness of the Lombards for 
self-government, 334 ; conflict of 
factions, >6. ; succession of revolu- 
tions, 335; Visconti family, 330 ; 
vain attempt to erect a republic, 
337 ; Francis Sforza, ib. ; bis vic- 
tories, and elevation by the mob, 
338 ; fickleness and baseness of 
the people of Milan and Placentia, 
ib. ; ('barles V. obtains the sove- 
reignty of, after the Sforzas, 340. 

Miltiades, vide Athens. 

Montecchi and Bonifazii, 21)7. 

Montesquieu's errors on the history 
of Rome, 102. 

Morse, vide Sparta. 

Mothaces, vide Sparta. 

Motta, vide Milan. 

Napoleon's policy in Switzerland, 
vide Luccrn. 

Naucrarii, vide Athens. 

Neri and Bianchi, vide Florence. 

Niebuhr"s opinions on the history of 
Rome, 100, 107, 108, 112, 114, 
121, 123, 124, 125, 134, 139, 141. 

Nobility, vide Aristocracy. 

Nomothetcs, vide Athens. 

Nuncios, vide Poland. 

Oligarchy in Venice, 290 ; in Genoa, 
314, 327; of burghers in Florence, 
350; in Sienna, 358, 359, 360, 
3G2, 303 ; in Lucca, 365, 366 ; in 
Bern, 378. 

Orators, state, vide Athens. 

Ostracism, vide Athens. 



Otbo I. emperor, grants municipal 
institutions to the Italian towns, 
254. 

Padua, 299, 301, 302, 303. 
Psedonomus, vide Sparta. 
Palatine, vide Poland. 
Pansetolian, 248. 
Panathensea, vide Athens. 
Panvinius, Onuphrius, errors in 

the history of Rome, 102. 
Paralii, vide Athens. 
Paredii, vide Athens. 
Parliament of the Italian cities, 255. 
Paris, Matthew, quoted, 69. 

Party, origin of, in aristocracies, 34 ; 
had no existence in Venice, 35; 
justifiable, 36; factious, ib. ; bad 
effects of the factious, 37 ; weak- 
ening of principle, ib. ; destruc- 
tion of confidence in statesmen, 
38 : corruption of private and 
public morals, ib. ; Hume's opi- 
nion on this subject, ib. ; union of 
sordid motives with pure, 39; 
examples thereof from history, ib.; 
produces self-deception, 40; de- 
stroys regard for truth, ib. ; pro- 
motes abuse of the press, 41 ; ge- 
nerates malignant feelings, 42; 
passage of Dante on, ib. ; opera- 
tion of, on inferior partisans, 43 ; 
effects of, in paralysing public 
councils, 44 ; examples of the 
mischief done by factions in Eng- 
land, ib. ; promotes treasonable 
proceedings, 45; defence of, by 
Fox and Burke, 45 ; general re- 
marks on, 46. 

Patres et conscripti, vide Rome. 

Patricians, vide Rome. 

Patrons and clients in Rome, 119 ; 
in different parts of Greece, 122. 

Pavia, 256. 

Pauls, Father, opinion on aristo- 
cracy, 62. 

Peculatus, 162. 

Pedrsci, vide Athens. 

Peerage, senseless project of a re- 
form of the English peerage, 15. 

Pericles, vide Athens. 

Perioeci, vide Crete, Sparta. 

Perizonius' work on Roman history, 
100. 

Personalis, vide Hungary. 

Petrucci, vide Sienna. 

Phylae, vide Athens. 

Phylobasileis, vide Athens. 

Phratriae, vide Athens.. 



390 



INDEX. 



Piast, dynasty of, in Poland, 73. 
Pisa, want of information respect- 
ing, 355. 
Pisan alliances with Genoa, 311. 
Pisistratus, Pisistratidse, vide 
Athens, 

Plato, vide Athens, Sparta. 

Plebeians, vide Rome. 

Plebiscitum, 136, 139. 

Plutarch, opinions on, 98. 

Podesta, functions of, 296 ; vide also 
Florence, Milan, Bologna,.Sienna. 

Poland, constitution of, 72 : history 
of, ib. ; confederation of 1573, 74 ; 
efforts of the Czartoriskys to im- 
prove the constitution of, 75; 
election of Poniatowski to the 
throne, ib. ; the improvements of 
the Czartoryskis overturned by 
the intrigues of Russia, ib. ; first 
dismemberment of, 76 ; constitu- 
tion of the 3rd May, 1791, ib. ; 
nuncios, diet, dietines, ib. ; of- 
fices of palatines, castellans, and 
starosts,78 ; election of the kings, 
ib. ; rights and privileges of the 
kings, 79 ; composition and func- 
tions of the senate, 80; chamber 
of nuncios, 81 ; liberum veto, ib. ; 
confederation, rokosh, senatus 
concilium, 82 ; administration of 
justice, ib. ; courts of justice 
created by Stephen Battari, ib. ; 
election of judges, ib. ; pospolite, 
or arriere ban, ib. ; vain attempts 
of John Albert to curb the exor- 
bitant power of the nobles, 84 ; 
character and habits of the nobles, 
ib. ; splendour of the Princes 
Czartoryski, and patriotism of 
the present representative of this 
family, 85 ; works on, ib. 

Polemarch, vide Athens, Sparta. 

Political profession impossible, 21 ; 
must necessarily be a corrupt 
trade, ib. 

Polybius's account of Sparta, 178 ; 
opinion on, 98. 

Pontiffs in Rome, 148. 

Popolani grossi, vide Florence. 

Pospolite, vide Poland. 

Praetor in Rome, 132, 143. 

Pregadi, vide Venice. 

Princeps senatus, 124. 

Proconsul and propraetor in Rome, 
146. 

Procurators of St. Mark, vide 
Venice. 

Proletarii in Rome, 111. 



Proveditori, vide Venice. 
Prytanes, Prytaneum, vide Athens. 
Pythii, vide Sparta. 

Quarantia, vide Venice. 
Quaesitores in Rome, 151. 
Quaestionis jus, ib. 
Quaestors in Rome, 143. 

Ramnes, vide Rome. 

Repetundae, 162. 

Rex sacrorum in Rome, 148. 

Ricci, vide Florence. 

Robot, vide Hungary. 

Roger of Hoveden, a monkish his- 
torian, quoted, 69. 

Rokosh, vide Poland. 

Rome, government of, not an aris- 
tocracy, 2 ; contains germs of 
aristocracy, 3; became a mixed 
aristocracy, ib. ; oppression of the 
people by the aristocracy of, 
52 ; aristocracy of, odious to the 
people, 57 ; constitution of, 98 ; 
importance of this subject, ib. ; 
its great difficulty, ib. ; ancient 
historians of, ib. ; modern writers, 
99 ; predecessors of Niebuhr, 100; 
Niebuhr and his school, ib. ; 
scantiness of materials, ib. ; cha- 
racter of Niebuhr's writings, 101 ; 
errors of eminent authors on the 
history of, ib. ; early history en- 
tirely fabulous, 102 ; illustrations 
thereof, ib. ; probable era of the 
foundation of, 104 ; early divi- 
sions of the people, ib. ; early 
constitution, ib, ; the tribes, ib. ; 
patricians, 106; plebeians, ib. ; 
patrons, ib. ; clients, 105 ; comitia 
curiata, 107 ; Niebuhr's doctrine 
examined, ib. ; equites, 109 ; re- 
forms of Servius, 110 ; centuries, 
111 ; comitia centuriata, 113 ; 
legislation of Servius, 114; com- 
parison with Solon's, ib. ; Tar- 
quin the Proud, 115 ; his tyranny, 
116; his expulsion, ib. ; founda- 
tion of the aristocratic republic, 
ib. ; fabulous history, 117 ; com- 
parison of the revolution of, with 
those of France and England, 
118; patrician power, 119; pa- 
trons and clients, ib. ; feudal re- 
semblance, 121 ; aaerarii, ib. ; 
error of authors, ib. ; clients in 
Sparta, Crete, Thessaly, and 
Attica, 122 ; monopoly of offices, 
123 ; senate, ib. ; conflicting ac- 



INDEX. 



391 



counts of it, 124; Dionysius and 
Livy, ib. ; errors of authors, 125 ; 
censors, ib. ; choice of senate, 
126 ; power of censors, ib. ; 
practical checks to censorial 
power, 127 ; senate's functions, 
129 ; variations of its power, ib. ; 
patres et conscripti, 130; senate's 
influence, ib. ; dictators, 131 ; 
consuls, 132 ; praetors, ib. ; pa- 
trician oppressions, ib. ; public 
lands, ib.; Agrarian law, 133; 
Spurius Cassius, ib. ; Licinian 
Rogations, ib. ; errors of writers 
on Agrarian law, 134; patrician 
creditors, ib. : tribunes chosen, 
135; their power, ib. ; progress 
of popular power, 136 ; decline 
of comitia curiata, ib. ; rise of 
comitia tributa, ib.; course of 
legislation, 137; double legisla- 
tion, ib. i anomalies, t b. ; solution 
of the paradox, 13S; senatus 
consul ta and plebiscita, ib. ; 
checks to the tribunes, 131) : su- 
perstitious rites, ib. ; laws of the 
auspices, 140 ; senate's errors, 
ib. ; democracy established, ib. ; 
practical defects of the govern- 
ment, 141; decemvirs, ib. ; go- 
vernment carries on laws and 
legislative decrees, 142 ; consuls, 
ib.; praetors, 143; aediles, ple- 
beian and curule, ib. ; quaestors, 
civil and military, ib. ; choice of 
magistrates, 144 ; controversy de 
binis comitiis, ib ; dictator, ib. ; 
progress of popular power, 145 ; 
interrex, ib. ; consular functions, 
146 ; provincial proconsuls and 
propraetors, ?'6. ; vigour of the go- 
vernment, 147; religious polity, 
148 ; pontiffs, ib. ; rex sacrorum, 
ib. ; college of augurs, 149 ; 
haruspices, ib. ; Sibylline decem- 
virs, ib. ; singular facts, 150 ; ju- 
dicial duties of magistrates, ib. ; 
Cornelian laws, 151 ; judicial 
system, ib. ; justices, ib. ; cen- 
tumvirs, ib. ; quaestores, ib. ; jus 
qucestionis, or merum imperium, 
ib. ; divinatio, 152 ; special ju- 
dicial laws, ib. ; abuses from 
thence, 153 ; analogy of parlia- 
mentary privilege, ib. ; impeach- 
ment, ib. ; cognitiones extraor- 
di?iarice, ib. ; examples, ib. ; 
progress of democracy, 155 ; 
Canulejus, ib ; address of the 



patricians, ib. ; distinctions of the 
orders obliterated, 156 ; new aris- 
tocratic distinctions, ib. ; new 
plebeian body, their baseness, ib. ; 
operation of party, 157 ; plebeians 
at different periods, ib. ; virtues 
of the old plebeians, contrast of 
the new, ib. ; savage character, 
warlike habits, 158; massacres of 
Marius, ib. ; Cicero, ib. ; Julius 
Caesar, 159 ; corruption of the 
people, canvassing, treating, 
bribery, ib. ; sale of votes, divi- 
sores, ambitus, sodalitium, 160; 
bribery laws, ib. ; unpaid magis- 
tracy, 161 ; popular patronage 
and corruption, 162 ; peculatus, 
repetundec, ib. ; popular corrup- 
tion, faction, civil war, ib. ; over- 
throw of the commonwealth, 163 ; 
conduct of the aristocracy, ib. ; 
aristocracy and princes, 164; 
error of the patricians, 165 ; 
American war, Irish independ- 
ence, 166 ; Roman parties, 167 ; 
conduct of the people, ib. ; Ro- 
man yeomanry, ib. ; natural aris- 
tocracy, 168 ; orders new moulded, 
169; West Indian society, 170; 
aristocracy of middle classes, ib. ; 
power useless to an uneducated 
people, 171 ; checks on the people, 
ib. ; checks in general, 172 ; delay 
and notice, English proceedings, 
ib.; factious men uncontrolled,^.; 
Catiline's conspiracy, 173 ; Ci- 
cero's conduct, ib. ; Middleton's 
error respecting Cicero, ib. 
Roman dominions compared with 
the Venetian, 280. 

Salinguerra, family of, 297. 

Saint Croix's work on ancient fede- 
ral governments, 178. 

San Marino, vide Marino. 

Savii, vide Venice. 

Saxony, house of, on the throne of 
Poland, 74. 

Scotch parliament compared with 
the Venetian government, 292. 

Seisachtia, vide Solon. 

Senate of Rome, 123, 126, 129, 130; 
of the Italian cities, 255. 

Senatus concilium, vide Poland. 

Servius Tullius, King of Rome, 

^ 109, 110, 114, 115. 

Sforza family, vide Milan. 

Sibylline books and Decemvirs,149. 

Sienna, aristocracy never entirely 



392 



INDEX. 



extinguished, consuls, podesta, 
council, 357; oligarchy esta- 
blished in, steps of the transition, 
358 ; intrigues of the oligarchs 
with the foreign powers, 359 ; oli- 
garchs overthrown, 360 ; burgher 
aristocracy and oligarchy, ib. ; 
government falls into the hands 
of the lowest class, 361 ; surrender 
of, to Visconti, ib. ; factious tur- 
bulence and revolutions, ib. ; 
Petrucci's power, 362 ; five or- 
ders recognised, ib. ; Duke of 
Calabria, ib. ; mob oligarchy, ib. ; 
revolution and new government, 
ib. ; dictatorship and destruction 
of this new constitution, 363 ; 
governments of Spain and France 
alternately, ib. ; union with Tus- 
cany, ib. ; real duration of Sien- 
nese oligarchy, ib. 

Sigismund Augustus, King of Po- 
land, 73. 

Sigismund III., Vasa, king of Po- 
land, 74. 

Signor del Popolo, vide Milan. 

Sigonius's opinions on the history of 
Rome quoted and examined, 102, 
144, 152. 

Sodalitium, 160. 

Solon, vide Athens; Solon compared 
with Servius, 114. 

Sparta, the only lasting aristocracy 
of ancient times, 4 ; constitution 
of, derived from Crete, 178; opi- 
nions of Polybius and others, ib. ; 
periceci, ib., 180 ; helots, ib., 181 ; 
Lycurgus, 179 ; general remarks, 
ib. ; authors, 180 ; classes of the 
people, ib. ; proofs of this theory, 
ib.; hypomeiones, homoioi, mo- 
thaces, 182; insurrection of Ci- 
nadon, ib., 183; tribes, phylae, 

■ obae, 183 ; castes, ib. ; morae, ib. ; 
errors of authors, ib. ; kings or 
archaget8e,/6. ; rules of succession, 
ib. ; senate, 184; ecclesiae, 185; 
mode of voting, ib. ; polemarchs, 
harmosynae, homophylaces, har- 
mostae, hippogrenae, 186; object 
of Spartan system, 187 ; its ope- 
ration traced, ib. ; stages < of hu- 
man life as subject to it, ib. ; 
marriage, procreation, infancy, 
boyhood, paedonomus, full age, 
188; equality of fortune attempt- 
ed, 189 ; ephors, 191 ; their power, 
ib. ; resemblance to tribunes, 
192; opinions of authors recon- 



ciled, ib. ; Ephoral usurpation, 
193; artificial aristocracy, 195; 
natural aristocracy, 196; contro- 
versy on classification, opinions 
of authors, 197 ; contradictory 
usages, ib. ; unintelligible state- 
ments, ib.; paradoxes, 198; du- 
ration of Lycurgus' polity, 200 ; 
party process and changes, ib. ; 
Agis, Lysander, and Cleomenes, 
201 ; Spartans overpowered, join 
the Achaean league, 202 ; distinc- 
tion of orders, 203. 

Spurius Cassius, 133. 

Stephen Battori, King of Poland, 
82. 

Swiss aristocracy, 369 ; division of 
this subject, ib. 

Synod us, vide Athens. 

Szecheny, Count, vide Hungary. 

Szolgo Birok, vide Hungary. 

Tabula, vide Diet of Hungary. 
Tarquin the Proud, his character 

and expulsion, 116 
Ten, Council of, vide Venice. 
Theban government, vide Boeotian 

government. 
Themistocles, vide Athens. 
Thesmotethae, vide Athens. 
Theseus, vide Athens. 
Titus, vide Rome. 
Torre, Martino della, vide Milan. 
Tribes, Roman, 184. 
Tribunes of Rome, 135, 139, 140. 
Tribunus celerum, 110. 
Trityes, vide Athens. 
Tuscany, Sienna united with, 363. 

Uberti, vide Florence. 

Upstart superiority less respected 

than a long-established one, 25. 
Urbarium, vide Hungary. 

Valerian law, 135, 142. 

Valerius Maximus, opinion on, 99. 

Vasa, dynasty of. in Poland, 73. 

Venice, oligarchy of, 22. 

Venice free from political parties, 
35; aristocracy of, popular, 57; 
origin of, 260 ; insular federacy, 
ib. ; anarchy, 261 ; doge created, 
ib. ; town of Venice founded,^. ; 
conquests, ib. ; parties, 262 ; 
doge's power restricted, 263 > 
pregadi, ib. ; aristocracy founded, 
ib. ; grand council, 264; oligarchy 
established, 265 ; council of ten, 
ib. ; inquisition, 267 ; spies, ib, ; 



INDEX. 



393 



lion's mouth, ib. ; committee of 
public safety in France compared 
with the council of ten, ib. ; doge, 
269 ; complicated election of the 
doge, ib. ; two objects kept in 
view by this complication, 270 ; 
neither of them attained, ib. ; 
examination of the process, ib. ; 
first object to prevent faction, 
ib. ; second object to prevent cor- 
ruption, 271 ; jealous nature of 
aristocracy, 273 ; limited power 
of the doge, ib. ; ducal oath, 274 ; 
officers to watch and punish the 
doge, ib. ; avogadors, ib. ; doge"s 
prerogative, 275 ; senate or pre- 
gadi, ib. ; collegio, ib. ; judicial 
power, 276 ; quarantia, ib. ; of- 
fices filled by commoners, ib. ; 
procurators of St. Mark, ib. ; 
savii, ib. ; provincial offices, ib. ; 
proveditori, ib. ; government of 
Candia, 277 ; great vigour of the 
government, 278 ; comparison of 
the dominions of, with those of 
England, 279 ; comparison with 
those of Rome, 280 ; tyranny of, 
281 ; examples, Carraro,Carmag- 
nola, Foscari, 202; Zeno, Marino 
Falieri, 285 ; firmness and vigour 
of the government of, 286 ; mili- 
tary policy, 287 ; equalising laws, 
288 ; merits of the system, ib. ; 
provincial government, 289 ; oli- 
garchy substantially established, 
290 ; comparison with the Eng- 
lish government, 291 ; Scottish 
parliament compared with, 292 ; 
meanness and pride of the nobles 
of, 293 ; improvements in mo- 
dern times, 294. 
Venetian terra firma, 295; feudal 
nobility, ib. ; municipal govern- 
ment originally in their hands, 
296 ; podestas, ib. ; factions, 297 ; 
Montecchi and Bonifazii, ib. ; 
Adelardi and Salinguerra fami- 
lies, ib. ; Vivacio and Vicenza 
families, ib. ; rise of the friars, 
ib. ; their fanatical preaching 
and influence, ib. ; their usurpa- 
tion, 298 ; John of Vicenza, ib. ; 
Jordan of Padua, 299 ; Ezzelino 



da Romano, ib. ; his prodigious 
tyranny, 300; despicable sub- 
mission of the people, 301 ; his 
destruction, ib. ; submission of 
the towns to others, 302 ; Cane 
della Seal a, ib. ; levity of the 
democratic councils of Padua, 
ib. ; corrected by the aristocracy, 
303 ; municipal governments, ib. ; 
anziani, ib. ; gastaldioni, ib. ; 
John Galeaz Visconti. 304; de- 
mocracy of Verona and Vicenza, 
ib. ; submission of the people to 
tyranny, 305 ; war of parties in 
Italy, 306 ; hired troops, ib. ; 
condottieri, ib. ; military opera- 
tions, 307; surrender of rights by 
the people to the chiefs, ib. ; ef- 
fects of aristocracy, faction, ty- 
ranny, on the character of the 
people, ib. ; letters and arts, 308. 

Venetian government compared 
with the Genoese, 326. 

Verona, 297, 298, 299, 300, 302, 
304. 

Vicenza, 297, 298, 299, 300, 302, 
304. 

Vico on Roman constitution, 100. 

Visconti, vide Milan, Genoa, Sienna. 

Vivacio, family of, 297. 

Voltaire's criticism of Roman his- 
tory, 99. 

Wealth, foundation of aristocracy, 
24 ; respect of talent for, ib. 

West Indian society, 170. 

Whigs bribed by Louis XIV., 236. 

William of Malmesbury, a monkish 
historian, quoted, 67; of New- 
bury, ditto, ditto, 68. 

Xenophon, vide Athens. 

Zamoscius, vide Zamoyski. 

Zamoyski, John, 74 ; his work on 
the Roman senate, 125, 127. 

Zeno, vide Venice. 

Zurich, early aristocracy of, 373; 
government of, more exclusive, 
ib. ; council, 374 ; senate, ib. ; con- 
stitution of 1803, ib. ; constitution 
of 1814, 375. 



PART II. 



2d 



LONDON • 

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